AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C02) — Question 644

A company stores data in an Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL DB cluster. The company must store all the data for 5 years and must delete all the data after 5 years.
The company also must indefinitely keep audit logs of actions that are performed within the database. Currently, the company has automated backups configured for Aurora.
Which combination of steps should a solutions architect take to meet these requirements? (Choose two.)

Answer options

• A. Take a manual snapshot of the DB cluster.
• B. Create a lifecycle policy for the automated backups.
• C. Configure automated backup retention for 5 years.
• D. Configure an Amazon CloudWatch Logs export for the DB cluster.
• E. Use AWS Backup to take the backups and to keep the backups for 5 years.

Correct answer: B, C

Explanation

Configuring the automated backup retention to 5 years ensures that the database data is preserved for the full required duration. Applying a lifecycle policy to these automated backups automates the deletion process once the 5-year retention period ends, fulfilling the requirement to delete the data after 5 years. Other options, such as manual snapshots or AWS Backup, are either not automated or do not utilize the existing automated backup configuration.