AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C02) — Question 339

A company is selling up an application to use an Amazon RDS MySQL DB instance. The database must be architected for high availability across Availability
Zones and AWS Regions with minimal downtime.
How should a solutions architect meet this requirement?

Answer options

• A. Set up an RDS MySQL Multi-AZ DB instance. Configure an appropriate backup window.
• B. Set up an RDS MySQL Multi-AZ DB instance. Configure a read replica in a different Region.
• C. Set up an RDS MySQL Single-AZ DB instance. Configure a read replica in a different Region.
• D. Set up an RDS MySQL Single-AZ DB instance. Copy automated snapshots to at least one other Region.

Correct answer: B

Explanation

To achieve high availability across Availability Zones, an Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployment is required, which eliminates Single-AZ options. To extend this high availability and disaster recovery capability across AWS Regions with minimal recovery time, establishing a cross-Region read replica is the optimal solution. Other options like copying snapshots or configuring backup windows do not provide the same low-downtime regional failover capabilities as a read replica.