SOA-C02 Reliability and Business Continuity Practice Question
A company runs a production database on an Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL DB instance in a single Availability Zone. The SysOps administrator needs to improve the database's availability to meet an SLA of 99.99% and ensure automatic failover in case of a database failure. Which configuration change should be made?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse read replicas (which are for read scaling and disaster recovery) with Multi-AZ deployments (which are for high availability and automatic failover), leading them to incorrectly select the cross-region read replica option.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable a Multi-AZ deployment
Enabling a Multi-AZ deployment for an Amazon RDS PostgreSQL DB instance automatically provisions and maintains a synchronous standby replica in a different Availability Zone. In the event of a database failure or an Availability Zone outage, Amazon RDS automatically fails over to the standby replica, typically within 60-120 seconds, meeting the 99.99% SLA requirement without manual intervention.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Enable a Multi-AZ deployment
Why this is correct
Multi-AZ deployment provisions a standby replica in a different Availability Zone with synchronous replication. If the primary instance fails, AWS automatically fails over to the standby, typically within 60 seconds, preserving your DNS endpoint so applications continue without manual intervention. This is the only option that directly provides automatic high availability for the primary RDS instance.
- ✗
Create a read replica in a different AWS Region
Why it's wrong here
A cross-region read replica asynchronously replicates data to serve read traffic or for eventual promotion in a disaster, but it does not monitor or automatically replace a failed primary. Promotion is a manual action that makes the replica a new standalone DB instance, and after promotion it loses replication links. It cannot provide automatic failover for the original instance, so it is not a high-availability solution.
- ✗
Configure automated backups with cross-region copy
Why it's wrong here
Configuring automated backups with cross-region copy gives you point-in-time recovery and a backup in another region for disaster recovery, but restoring from these backups requires manual processes such as creating a new DB instance from a snapshot or restored time. This recovery process incurs downtime and data loss up to the last backup, and it does not react to failures automatically. Backups are essential for durability, but they do not provide high availability.
- ✗
Enable deletion protection on the DB instance
Why it's wrong here
Deletion protection is an instance setting that prevents accidental deletion of the RDS database, requiring removal of this flag before a delete API call can succeed. It has no effect on runtime failures, zone outages, or the health of the primary; the instance continues running exactly as before. It is purely a safety control, not an availability feature.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SOA-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the SOA-C02 exam.