AWS Certified Database – Specialty — Question 303

A company's applications store data in Amazon Aurora MySQL DB clusters. The company has separate AWS accounts for its production, test, and development environments. To test new functionality in the test environment, the company's development team requires a copy of the production database four times a day.
Which solution meets this requirement with the MOST operational efficiency?

Answer options

• A. Take a manual snapshot in the production account. Share the snapshot with the test account. Restore the database from the snapshot.
• B. Take a manual snapshot in the production account. Export the snapshot to Amazon S3. Copy the snapshot to an S3 bucket in the test account. Restore the database from the snapshot.
• C. Share the Aurora DB cluster with the test account. Create a snapshot of the production database in the test account. Restore the database from the snapshot.
• D. Share the Aurora DB cluster with the test account. Create a clone of the production database in the test account.

Correct answer: D

Explanation

Creating an Amazon Aurora clone is the most operationally efficient method because it is nearly instantaneous and utilizes a copy-on-write protocol, avoiding the time and storage overhead of traditional restores. In contrast, options A, B, and C rely on manual snapshots and full database restores, which are slow, resource-intensive, and impractical to perform four times a day.