AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 1010

A company runs database workloads on AWS that are the backend for the company's customer portals. The company runs a Multi-AZ database cluster on Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL.

The company needs to implement a 30-day backup retention policy. The company currently has both automated RDS backups and manual RDS backups. The company wants to maintain both types of existing RDS backups that are less than 30 days old.

Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?

Answer options

• A. Configure the RDS backup retention policy to 30 days for automated backups by using AWS Backup. Manually delete manual backups that are older than 30 days.
• B. Disable RDS automated backups. Delete automated backups and manual backups that are older than 30 days. Configure the RDS backup retention policy to 30 days for automated backups.
• C. Configure the RDS backup retention policy to 30 days for automated backups. Manually delete manual backups that are older than 30 days.
• D. Disable RDS automated backups. Delete automated backups and manual backups that are older than 30 days automatically by using AWS CloudFormation. Configure the RDS backup retention policy to 30 days for automated backups.

Correct answer: C

Explanation

Amazon RDS allows you to natively configure the retention period for automated backups up to 35 days at no additional cost, which automatically deletes automated backups older than 30 days. Manual RDS snapshots are not affected by the automated retention policy and do not expire, so they must be manually deleted to avoid ongoing storage charges. Introducing AWS Backup as suggested in Option A is unnecessary, while disabling automated backups as suggested in Options B and D is disruptive and incorrect.