AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 600

A company uses Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP in its primary AWS Region for CIFS and NFS file shares. Applications that run on Amazon EC2 instances access the file shares. The company needs a storage disaster recovery (DR) solution in a secondary Region. The data that is replicated in the secondary Region needs to be accessed by using the same protocols as the primary Region.

Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?

Answer options

• A. Create an AWS Lambda function to copy the data to an Amazon S3 bucket. Replicate the S3 bucket to the secondary Region.
• B. Create a backup of the FSx for ONTAP volumes by using AWS Backup. Copy the volumes to the secondary Region. Create a new FSx for ONTAP instance from the backup.
• C. Create an FSx for ONTAP instance in the secondary Region. Use NetApp SnapMirror to replicate data from the primary Region to the secondary Region.
• D. Create an Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) volume. Migrate the current data to the volume. Replicate the volume to the secondary Region.

Correct answer: C

Explanation

NetApp SnapMirror is the native replication feature for ONTAP, allowing efficient, low-overhead volume replication between Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP file systems across AWS Regions while retaining full protocol support. Option B is less optimal because restoring a new FSx for ONTAP instance from backups during a disaster recovery event introduces significant recovery time and operational overhead. Options A and D are incorrect as they require migrating the data to entirely different storage services, which increases complexity and fails to leverage ONTAP's native capabilities.