AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C02) — Question 790

A company runs a global web application on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. The application stores data in Amazon Aurora. The company needs to create a disaster recovery solution and can tolerate up to 30 minutes of downtime and potential data loss. The solution does not need to handle the load when the primary infrastructure is healthy.
What should a solutions architect do to meet these requirements?

Answer options

• A. Deploy the application with the required infrastructure elements in place. Use Amazon Route 53 to configure active-passive failover. Create an Aurora Replica in a second AWS Region.
• B. Host a scaled-down deployment of the application in a second AWS Region. Use Amazon Route 53 to configure active-active failover. Create an Aurora Replica in the second Region.
• C. Replicate the primary infrastructure in a second AWS Region. Use Amazon Route 53 to configure active-active failover. Create an Aurora database that is restored from the latest snapshot.
• D. Back up data with AWS Backup. Use the backup to create the required infrastructure in a second AWS Region. Use Amazon Route 53 to configure active- passive failover. Create an Aurora second primary instance in the second Region.

Correct answer: D

Explanation

Option D is correct because using AWS Backup to replicate data to a secondary region and deploying the infrastructure on-demand aligns with the cost-effective 'Backup and Restore' disaster recovery strategy, which easily fits within the 30-minute RTO/RPO window. Active-passive routing with Amazon Route 53 ensures that traffic is only directed to the secondary region during a failover event. Active-active configurations described in other options are unnecessary and introduce extra costs since the secondary infrastructure does not need to handle active traffic under normal conditions.