← SOA-C02·Amazon Web Services

Question 325 of 1,546

Reliability and Business Continuity →easyMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

Using RDS Cross-Region Read Replicas for PostgreSQL Disaster Recovery

This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of reliability and business continuity. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. 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 company wants to create a disaster recovery (DR) strategy for its RDS for PostgreSQL database. The primary database is in us-east-1. The company needs a recovery point objective (RPO) of less than 5 minutes and a recovery time objective (RTO) of less than 1 hour. Which solution meets these requirements?

Clue words in this question

Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.

Clue: "primary"
Why it matters: Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.

A
Enable Multi-AZ in us-east-1 and create a standby in a different Availability Zone.
Why wrong: Does not protect against region failure.
B
Create a cross-region Read Replica in us-west-2 and promote it during a disaster.
Low RPO and RTO.
C
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to continuously replicate to an EC2 instance.
Why wrong: DMS is not designed for DR with low RTO.
D
Take daily automated snapshots and copy them to us-west-2.
Why wrong: RPO > 5 minutes.

Full breakdown with real-world context →

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

✓

Create a cross-region Read Replica in us-west-2 and promote it during a disaster.

Option B is correct because a cross-region Read Replica for Amazon RDS PostgreSQL maintains an asynchronous replication lag typically under 5 seconds, easily meeting the RPO of less than 5 minutes. During a disaster, promoting the Read Replica to a standalone instance can be completed in minutes, satisfying the RTO of less than 1 hour. This approach provides both low RPO and fast recovery without the complexity of additional services.

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.

✗
Enable Multi-AZ in us-east-1 and create a standby in a different Availability Zone.
Why it's wrong here
Does not protect against region failure.
✓
Create a cross-region Read Replica in us-west-2 and promote it during a disaster.
Why this is correct
Low RPO and RTO.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "primary" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to continuously replicate to an EC2 instance.
Why it's wrong here
DMS is not designed for DR with low RTO.
✗
Take daily automated snapshots and copy them to us-west-2.
Why it's wrong here
RPO > 5 minutes.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates often confuse Multi-AZ (high availability within a region) with cross-region disaster recovery, assuming Multi-AZ provides regional fault tolerance, but it does not protect against a region-wide outage.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Amazon RDS PostgreSQL cross-region Read Replicas use PostgreSQL's native streaming replication over an encrypted TLS connection, with the replica continuously applying WAL (Write-Ahead Log) data from the primary. The replication lag is monitored via the `ReplicaLag` CloudWatch metric, which typically stays under a few seconds in stable network conditions, but can spike during high write loads or network issues. In a real-world scenario, if the primary region experiences a complete outage, you promote the replica by initiating a promotion action that converts it to a standalone instance, which usually completes in 1–5 minutes, after which you redirect application traffic to the new endpoint.

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 media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.

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: Create a cross-region Read Replica in us-west-2 and promote it during a disaster. — Option B is correct because a cross-region Read Replica for Amazon RDS PostgreSQL maintains an asynchronous replication lag typically under 5 seconds, easily meeting the RPO of less than 5 minutes. During a disaster, promoting the Read Replica to a standalone instance can be completed in minutes, satisfying the RTO of less than 1 hour. This approach provides both low RPO and fast recovery without the complexity of additional services.

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.

Are there clue words in this question I should notice?

Yes — watch for: "primary". Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.

What is the key concept behind this question?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

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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.