AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 938

A company runs a web application on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application stores data in an Amazon Aurora MySQL DB cluster.

The company needs to create a disaster recovery (DR) solution. The acceptable recovery time for the DR solution is up to 30 minutes. The DR solution does not need to support customer usage when the primary infrastructure is healthy.

Which solution will meet these requirements?

Answer options

• A. Deploy the DR infrastructure in a second AWS Region with an ALB and an Auto Scaling group. Set the desired capacity and maximum capacity of the Auto Scaling group to a minimum value. Convert the Aurora MySQL DB cluster to an Aurora global database. Configure Amazon Route 53 for an active-passive failover with ALB endpoints.
• B. Deploy the DR infrastructure in a second AWS Region with an ALUpdate the Auto Scaling group to include EC2 instances from the second Region. Use Amazon Route 53 to configure active-active failover. Convert the Aurora MySQL DB cluster to an Aurora global database.
• C. Back up the Aurora MySQL DB cluster data by using AWS Backup. Deploy the DR infrastructure in a second AWS Region with an ALB. Update the Auto Scaling group to include EC2 instances from the second Region. Use Amazon Route 53 to configure active-active failover. Create an Aurora MySQL DB cluster in the second Region Restore the data from the backup.
• D. Back up the infrastructure configuration by using AWS Backup. Use the backup to create the required infrastructure in a second AWS Region. Set the Auto Scaling group desired capacity to zero. Use Amazon Route 53 to configure active-passive failover. Convert the Aurora MySQL DB cluster to an Aurora global database.

Correct answer: A

Explanation

Option A provides a highly effective Pilot Light / Warm Standby disaster recovery strategy that easily meets the 30-minute RTO by utilizing Amazon Aurora Global Database for fast, cross-region replication and maintaining pre-provisioned, low-capacity resources. Options B and C are incorrect because an Auto Scaling group cannot span across multiple AWS Regions. Option D is incorrect because AWS Backup is used for data backups, not for backing up and automatically recreating full infrastructure configurations like ALBs and Auto Scaling groups across regions.