AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional — Question 843

An organization is setting up a backup and restore system in AWS of their in premise system. The organization needs High Availability(HA) and Disaster Recovery
(DR) but is okay to have a longer recovery time to save costs.
Which of the below mentioned setup options helps achieve the objective of cost saving as well as DR in the most effective way?

Answer options

• A. Setup pre-configured servers and create AMIs. Use EIP and Route 53 to quickly switch over to AWS from in premise.
• B. Setup the backup data on S3 and transfer data to S3 regularly using the storage gateway.
• C. Setup a small instance with AutoScaling; in case of DR start diverting all the load to AWS from on premise.
• D. Replicate on premise DB to EC2 at regular intervals and setup a scenario similar to the pilot light.

Correct answer: B

Explanation

Utilizing AWS Storage Gateway to regularly transfer backup data to Amazon S3 represents the classic 'Backup and Restore' DR strategy, which is the most cost-effective method when a longer recovery time (RTO) is acceptable. This approach avoids the ongoing costs of running active EC2 instances or maintaining pilot light environments. Other options like Route 53 failover, active AutoScaling instances, or continuous DB replication to EC2 incur significantly higher running costs.