AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C02) — Question 367

A company hosts a software as a service (SaaS) solution on AWS. The solution has an Amazon API Gateway API that serves an HTTPS endpoint. The API uses AWS Lambda functions for compute. The Lambda functions store data in an Amazon Aurora Serverless v1 database.

The company used the AWS Serverless Application Model (AWS SAM) to deploy the solution. The solution extends across multiple Availability Zones and has no disaster recovery (DR) plan.

A solutions architect must design a DR strategy that can recover the solution in another AWS Region. The solution has an RTO of 5 minutes and an RPO of 1 minute.

What should the solutions architect do to meet these requirements?

Answer options

• A. Create a read replica of the Aurora Serverless v1 database in the target Region. Use AWS SAM to create a runbook to deploy the solution to the target Region. Promote the read replica to primary in case of disaster.
• B. Change the Aurora Serverless v1 database to a standard Aurora MySQL global database that extends across the source Region and the target Region. Use AWS SAM to create a runbook to deploy the solution to the target Region.
• C. Create an Aurora Serverless v1 DB cluster that has multiple writer instances in the target Region. Launch the solution in the target Region. Configure the two Regional solutions to work in an active-passive configuration.
• D. Change the Aurora Serverless v1 database to a standard Aurora MySQL global database that extends across the source Region and the target Region. Launch the solution in the target Region. Configure the two Regional solutions to work in an active-passive configuration.

Correct answer: D

Explanation

To achieve a strict RTO of 5 minutes, the compute and API infrastructure must be pre-deployed in the target region (active-passive configuration) rather than deployed on-demand, which rules out options using runtime deployment runbooks. Additionally, to meet the 1-minute RPO, migrating from Aurora Serverless v1 to a standard Aurora MySQL global database is required because Serverless v1 does not natively support global database replication. This combination of pre-deployed infrastructure and storage-level global replication ensures both RTO and RPO targets are successfully met.