SOA-C02 Reliability and Business Continuity Practice Question
A company uses AWS Backup to back up its Amazon EFS file system daily. The backup retention policy is set to 30 days. Recently, a user accidentally deleted a critical directory. The company wants to restore the directory as it existed 2 days ago. What is the MOST cost-effective and quickest way to achieve this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers assume AWS Backup can restore directly into the original EFS file system, but AWS Backup for EFS always creates a new file system during restore, requiring a manual copy step to recover specific data.
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
✓
Restore the backup from 2 days ago to a new EFS file system, then copy the directory to the original file system.
AWS Backup creates point-in-time snapshots of EFS file systems. Restoring a backup from 2 days ago to a new EFS file system allows you to mount that new file system, copy the specific directory back to the original file system, and then delete the temporary file system. This is the most cost-effective and quickest approach since it avoids moving data to on-premises servers and uses native AWS services without additional replication costs.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use the EFS console to recover the directory from the .Trash folder.
Why it's wrong here
Amazon EFS is a POSIX file system with no built-in recycle bin or .Trash folder; when a file or directory is deleted, it is immediately unlinked and the occupied space is freed unless the file system is protected by a backup policy. The EFS console does not provide any file-level recovery interface — it only lets you create, mount, and manage file systems (including lifecycle policies and replication). Therefore, there is no way to "un-delete" a directory from the console itself, making this option incorrect.
- ✗
Enable EFS replication to another region and then fail back.
Why it's wrong here
EFS replication continuously copies data from the source file system to a destination file system in another Region, but it replicates the *current* state, not a historical point-in-time version. If a directory was accidentally deleted from the source, the deletion is immediately replicated to the destination, so failover wouldn't recover the missing data — it would just present the same corrupted state. Replication is designed for disaster recovery and high availability, not for rolling back accidental deletions that occurred days ago, so this approach fails to restore the directory.
- ✗
Use AWS Backup to restore the entire file system to an on-premises server, then copy the directory back.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Backup cannot restore an Amazon EFS backup directly to an on-premises server; its restore targets are always EFS file systems in the customer's AWS account (new or existing) — you'd have to first restore to an EFS file system, then mount it and copy data out, which is extra steps. Even ignoring that, restoring the entire file system to an on-premises location and then copying back into the original would be far slower and more complex than restoring the backup to a new EFS and using that as an intermediate to selectively copy the missing directory. The unnecessary network transfer and mount configuration add no benefit, making this an inferior and technically invalid approach.
- ✓
Restore the backup from 2 days ago to a new EFS file system, then copy the directory to the original file system.
Why this is correct
AWS Backup for EFS captures point-in-time snapshots accessible as recovery points; you can restore the recovery point from two days ago to a brand-new EFS file system, which is a fast, fully managed operation. Once the restored file system is mounted (e.g., on a temporary EC2 instance), you can selectively copy the missing directory from it to the original file system using cp or rsync or AWS DataSync. This provides a clean, isolated recovery path that does not alter the current file system until you explicitly copy the target directory, so it is the correct way to achieve selective point-in-time recovery.
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Same concept, more angles
2 more ways this is tested on SOA-C02
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company uses AWS Backup to back up its Amazon EFS file systems. The SysOps administrator needs to ensure that backups are retained for 7 years to meet compliance requirements. What should the administrator do?
medium- ✓ A.Create a backup plan with a lifecycle policy that retains backups for 7 years.
- B.Manually delete backups older than 7 years every month.
- C.Increase the backup frequency to daily.
- D.Configure cross-region backup to copy backups to another region.
Why A: AWS Backup allows you to define backup plans that include lifecycle policies to automatically transition backups to cold storage and expire them after a specified retention period. By setting the retention period to 7 years (2557 days) in the backup plan, AWS Backup will automatically manage the deletion of backups after that time, ensuring compliance without manual intervention.
Variation 2. An organization needs to back up an Amazon EFS file system daily and retain backups for 30 days. Which AWS service provides a managed backup solution for EFS?
easy- ✓ A.AWS Backup
- B.Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM)
- C.EFS replication to another region
- D.S3 Lifecycle policies
Why A: AWS Backup is the correct answer because it is a fully managed, policy-based backup service that supports Amazon EFS natively. It allows you to define backup plans with daily schedules and retention rules (e.g., 30 days) without needing to manage any backup infrastructure or scripts. AWS Backup handles the lifecycle of backups, including incremental backups and automatic deletion of expired recovery points.
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.