SOA-C02 Reliability and Business Continuity Practice Question
A SysOps administrator is designing a backup strategy for an Amazon EFS file system. The file system stores critical data that must be recoverable within 15 minutes of a failure. Which solution meets these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse EFS lifecycle management or EBS snapshots with backup solutions, not realizing that EFS requires a dedicated backup service (AWS Backup) to meet specific RTO/RPO requirements, and that EBS snapshots do not capture data stored on a separate network file system.
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
✓
Use AWS Backup to create automated backups of the EFS file system and restore to a new file system if needed.
AWS Backup provides a fully managed, policy-driven backup solution for Amazon EFS that supports automated, scheduled backups with point-in-time recovery. Restoring an EFS file system from a backup typically completes within minutes, meeting the 15-minute recovery time objective (RTO). This is the only option that directly addresses the requirement for recoverable backups with a defined RTO.
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 AWS Backup to create automated backups of the EFS file system and restore to a new file system if needed.
Why this is correct
AWS Backup natively integrates with Amazon EFS, enabling scheduled, automated backups via backup plans and lifecycle policies. Restores create a new EFS file system from the backup vault, preserving file metadata and permissions. This is the standard managed service for centralized EFS backup, supporting cross-region/cross-account copies and retention management.
- ✗
Configure EFS lifecycle management to move files to Infrequent Access storage class.
Why it's wrong here
EFS Lifecycle Management automatically moves files to the Infrequent Access (IA) storage class based on access age, reducing storage cost for rarely accessed data. It does not create any copies or point-in-time versions of files, so it cannot restore lost or deleted data. This is a tiering mechanism, not a backup strategy, and is orthogonal to data protection.
- ✗
Take periodic EBS snapshots of the EC2 instance that mounts the EFS volume.
Why it's wrong here
EBS snapshots capture the block-level contents of the EC2 instance's attached EBS volumes, such as the root volume. EFS is a separate network file system mounted via NFS, and its data is not stored on those EBS volumes, so snapshots miss it entirely. Additionally, EFS has its own durability and availability independent of any instance, so instance snapshots are irrelevant for EFS recovery.
- ✗
Create a Lambda function that copies files to an S3 bucket every hour.
Why it's wrong here
A custom Lambda function copying files to S3 is an ad-hoc solution that lacks the orchestration, incremental block-level efficiency, and metadata fidelity of native backups. It would require you to build tracking for deletions, manage S3 object versioning, and handle consistency, all without centralized backup vault or restore workflows. It may serve as archival, but it is not a standard AWS-managed backup strategy and introduces significant maintenance overhead.
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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.