AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 231

A company is implementing new data retention policies for all databases that run on Amazon RDS DB instances. The company must retain daily backups for a minimum period of 2 years. The backups must be consistent and restorable.

Which solution should a solutions architect recommend to meet these requirements?

Answer options

• A. Create a backup vault in AWS Backup to retain RDS backups. Create a new backup plan with a daily schedule and an expiration period of 2 years after creation. Assign the RDS DB instances to the backup plan.
• B. Configure a backup window for the RDS DB instances for daily snapshots. Assign a snapshot retention policy of 2 years to each RDS DB instance. Use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (Amazon DLM) to schedule snapshot deletions.
• C. Configure database transaction logs to be automatically backed up to Amazon CloudWatch Logs with an expiration period of 2 years.
• D. Configure an AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) replication task. Deploy a replication instance, and configure a change data capture (CDC) task to stream database changes to Amazon S3 as the target. Configure S3 Lifecycle policies to delete the snapshots after 2 years.

Correct answer: A

Explanation

Option A is correct because creating a backup vault in AWS Backup allows for organized retention of RDS backups with a specified daily schedule and a clear expiration policy. Option B, while it discusses snapshot retention, does not ensure a comprehensive backup plan through AWS Backup. Option C only covers transaction logs and does not address full backup needs, while Option D focuses on data replication rather than backups, which does not meet the requirement for consistent restorability of daily backups.