AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 306

A solutions architect must create a disaster recovery (DR) plan for a high-volume software as a service (SaaS) platform. All data for the platform is stored in an Amazon Aurora MySQL DB cluster.

The DR plan must replicate data to a secondary AWS Region.

Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?

Answer options

• A. Use MySQL binary log replication to an Aurora cluster in the secondary Region. Provision one DB instance for the Aurora cluster in the secondary Region.
• B. Set up an Aurora global database for the DB cluster. When setup is complete, remove the DB instance from the secondary Region.
• C. Use AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) to continuously replicate data to an Aurora cluster in the secondary Region. Remove the DB instance from the secondary Region.
• D. Set up an Aurora global database for the DB cluster. Specify a minimum of one DB instance in the secondary Region.

Correct answer: B

Explanation

Amazon Aurora global databases replicate data at the storage layer with minimal latency and allow the secondary cluster to have zero active DB instances, which eliminates compute costs in the DR region until a failover occurs. Option D is more expensive because it requires maintaining a running DB instance in the secondary region. Options A and C are more complex to manage and do not leverage Aurora's native, highly efficient, and cost-effective storage-level replication.