AWS Certified Database – Specialty — Question 274
A company uses a large, growing, and high performance on-premises Microsoft SQL Server instance with an Always On availability group cluster size of 120 TiB. The company uses a third-party backup product that requires system-level access to the databases. The company will continue to use this third-party backup product in the future.
The company wants to move the DB cluster to AWS with the least possible downtime and data loss. The company needs a 2 Gbps connection to sustain Always On asynchronous data replication between the company’s data center and AWS.
Which combination of actions should a database specialist take to meet these requirements? (Choose three.)
Answer options
- A. Establish an AWS Direct Connect hosted connection between the company’s data center and AWS.
- B. Create an AWS Site-to-Site VPN connection between the company's data center and AWS over the internet.
- C. Use AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) to migrate the on-premises SQL Server databases to Amazon RDS for SQL Server. Configure Always On availability groups for SQL Server.
- D. Deploy a new SQL Server Always On availability group DB cluster on Amazon EC2. Configure Always On distributed availability groups between the on-premises DB cluster and the AWS DB cluster. Fail over to the AWS DB cluster when it is time to migrate.
- E. Grant system-level access to the third-party backup product to perform backups of the Amazon RDS for SQL Server DB instance.
- F. Configure the third-party backup product to perform backups of the DB cluster on Amazon EC2.
Correct answer: A, D, F
Explanation
AWS Direct Connect (Option A) is required to guarantee a reliable, high-bandwidth 2 Gbps connection, which an internet-based VPN (Option B) cannot guarantee. Deploying SQL Server on Amazon EC2 (Option D) is necessary because the third-party backup product requires system-level access, which is not available on Amazon RDS (rendering Options C and E incorrect). Running SQL Server on EC2 (Option F) permits full OS-level and system-level access, allowing the company to continue using their existing backup tool.