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Reliability and Business Continuity →mediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

Low-Cost Disaster Recovery Using EBS Snapshots

This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of reliability and business continuity. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.

A SysOps administrator is designing a disaster recovery plan for a critical application that runs on EC2 instances in a single region. The RTO is 1 hour, and the RPO is 15 minutes. The application data is stored on an Amazon EBS volume. Which approach meets these requirements at the lowest cost?

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

✓

Take automated EBS snapshots every 15 minutes and copy them to the DR region. Use a pre-configured Amazon Machine Image (AMI) to launch EC2 instances from the latest snapshot.

Option C is correct because automated EBS snapshots taken every 15 minutes meet the RPO of 15 minutes, and copying them to the DR region allows launching EC2 instances from the latest snapshot using a pre-configured AMI, which can achieve an RTO of 1 hour. This approach is the lowest cost as it only incurs snapshot storage and cross-region data transfer costs, without requiring continuous replication infrastructure or additional compute resources.

Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

  • ✗

    Deploy the application across multiple Availability Zones using an Auto Scaling group and an Application Load Balancer.

    Why it's wrong here

    Multi-AZ provides high availability within a region but not disaster recovery for a region failure.

  • ✗

    Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for continuous replication to an EC2 instance in the DR region.

    Why it's wrong here

    DMS is for databases, not EBS volumes. Also, continuous replication can be costly and complex.

  • ✓

    Take automated EBS snapshots every 15 minutes and copy them to the DR region. Use a pre-configured Amazon Machine Image (AMI) to launch EC2 instances from the latest snapshot.

    Why this is correct

    EBS snapshots are cost-effective, and copying to another region provides regional resilience. Automation achieves RPO, and pre-staged AMI helps meet RTO.

    Related concept

    Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

  • ✗

    Use S3 Cross-Region Replication to replicate the EBS volume data to an S3 bucket in the DR region.

    Why it's wrong here

    EBS volumes are not directly replicated to S3; you would need to use snapshots or file-level copy. Also, restoring from S3 would be slower.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates may confuse cross-region replication for EBS volumes with S3 Cross-Region Replication, assuming EBS data can be directly replicated to S3, but EBS volumes are block-level storage and cannot be replicated via S3 CRR without an intermediary like AWS Backup or snapshot copy.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

EBS snapshots are incremental, meaning only changed blocks are saved after the initial snapshot, which minimizes storage costs and transfer time. The 15-minute snapshot interval aligns with the RPO, and copying snapshots to the DR region can be automated via lifecycle policies or AWS Backup. In a real-world scenario, you would also need to automate the AMI creation from the latest snapshot and configure an Auto Scaling group in the DR region to launch instances quickly, ensuring the RTO is met.

KKey Concepts to Remember

  • Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
  • Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
  • Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.

TExam Day Tips

  • Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
  • Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.

Key takeaway

Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.

Real-world example

How this comes up in practice

A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.

What to study next

Got this wrong? Here's your next step.

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

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FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this SOA-C02 question test?

Reliability and Business Continuity — This question tests Reliability and Business Continuity — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Take automated EBS snapshots every 15 minutes and copy them to the DR region. Use a pre-configured Amazon Machine Image (AMI) to launch EC2 instances from the latest snapshot. — Option C is correct because automated EBS snapshots taken every 15 minutes meet the RPO of 15 minutes, and copying them to the DR region allows launching EC2 instances from the latest snapshot using a pre-configured AMI, which can achieve an RTO of 1 hour. This approach is the lowest cost as it only incurs snapshot storage and cross-region data transfer costs, without requiring continuous replication infrastructure or additional compute resources.

What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

What is the key concept behind this question?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026

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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.