AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 Practice Test 60
Question 590
An application cuts over to a recovered regional database with newer correct inventory values, but Redis caches at the edge keep returning pre-outage stock levels. How should the post-failover plan handle this?
- Invalidate or reconcile stale caches as part of database promotion and regional traffic cutover.
- Reduce the Route 53 failover record TTL and direct clients at the promoted database, but leave every regional Redis key and its expiration policy unchanged.
- Increase stale cache TTLs until the old inventory values survive the entire recovery window.
- Enable Redis allkeys-lru eviction and assume it immediately removes only obsolete inventory versions following the database switchover.
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:Promoting a source of truth does not automatically refresh every distributed cache. Cache state must be reset or updated to avoid post-DR stale decisions.
Incorrect Answers
B:A low DNS TTL can help clients discover the new database, but it does not invalidate cached inventory values. They can remain incorrect until independently removed or refreshed.
C:Longer TTLs prolong incorrect reads and undermine correctness after the new writer becomes authoritative.
D:Allkeys-LRU evicts based on recent use and memory pressure, not database correctness. Frequently accessed stale values may remain, so recovery requires explicit invalidation or reconciliation.
Question 591
A database client reconnect storm occurs after an RDS Multi-AZ failover. The application uses thousands of short-lived Lambda invocations, each opening its own SQL connection. Which managed component can reduce connection overhead and help manage some disruptions?
- Disable database authentication because this causes connection storms to disappear without any security downside.
- Increase only S3 bucket lifecycle expiration, which changes RDS connection acquisition latency.
- Use a CloudFront cache policy to multiplex raw SQL database connections from Lambda.
- Use RDS Proxy with compatible database configuration and implement application retries for remaining failover errors.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:RDS Proxy reuses connections and can improve some failover behavior for supported engines, but does not make transactions magically uninterrupted.
Incorrect Answers
A:Removing security does not provide connection pooling or reliable transaction recovery.
B:Object retention cannot alter database connection quotas or pooling after standby promotion.
C:CloudFront caches HTTP content and is not a relational database connection pool or failover proxy.
Question 592
An application routes all database traffic through RDS Proxy and a team declares its sessions can never fail. They use session variables that cause pinning and execute long transactions. What failure behavior should be tested?
- Increase the number of ALB listeners because HTTP routing automatically migrates pinned RDS SQL sessions.
- Validate session pinning, transaction recovery and client retry behavior through realistic database failover drills.
- Assume pinning guarantees a transaction continues on the new primary with no retry after the original backend fails.
- Disable database transaction logs to reduce failover time while preserving exactly-once commit semantics.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:A proxy helps reuse connections but certain session state and in-flight transactions still require reconnect or retry after a backend interruption.
Incorrect Answers
A:Load balancer listener count does not change RDS Proxy pinning or SQL transaction recovery semantics.
C:Pinned connections depend on a specific backend session and do not guarantee seamless transaction continuation.
D:Removing audit or transaction state is not a supported way to make pending application transactions faultless.
Question 593
An RDS Proxy endpoint is reachable from application instances in one AZ but not another. The proxy has incomplete VPC subnet and security-group configuration for the second application's network path. Which design check should be performed?
- Validate proxy subnet/AZ placement, routing and security-group paths to the proxy and database endpoints.
- Assume that because the proxy is managed, any private VPC and subnet can reach it without routing or security rules.
- Update only the RDS database instance security group while leaving the proxy endpoint, subnet reachability and proxy network rules unchanged.
- Disable RDS database encryption, because decrypting data is the cause of private TCP routing failures.
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:The proxy is a VPC-networked service. Compatible subnet choices and TCP authorization are still required for every consumer AZ.
Incorrect Answers
B:Managed connection pools do not ignore VPC network segmentation and TCP packet controls.
C:An RDS Proxy has its own endpoint ENIs and security-group path. Opening the database alone cannot repair a failed application-to-proxy connection caused by inaccessible subnets or proxy security-group restrictions.
D:At-rest encryption does not provide or remove VPC packet routes to the proxy endpoint.
Question 594
A database running behind RDS Proxy has only one DB instance and no usable backup. A team calls the system highly available because the proxy endpoints are managed. What important distinction should be made?
- Increase proxy connection pool maximum and claim there is now an independent database copy in another AZ.
- RDS Proxy handles connections; separate database redundancy and backup arrangements are required for true data availability and recovery.
- Disable all RDS snapshots because the proxy provides an equivalent historical database restoration timeline.
- Assume RDS Proxy automatically creates a synchronous second database instance and immutable backup for every proxied DB.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:Proxying a single failed database cannot invent a surviving writer or restore logically deleted records. Multi-AZ and recoverability are separate design concerns.
Incorrect Answers
A:Larger pools create more connection capacity but not additional data replicas or fault domains.
C:Connection reuse does not implement point-in-time recovery or recovery from a bad SQL migration.
D:A connection manager does not inherently provision another DB deployment or historical data recovery artifacts.
Question 595
A healthcare organization has copied recovery points from a production AWS account into a dedicated backup account. A restore drill fails because the destination vault and customer-managed encryption key deny the restore role, although the source administrator has AdministratorAccess. What must be corrected?
- Add an S3 bucket policy to the production application bucket only.
- Increase the instance profile permissions in the source account without touching the backup account.
- Authorize the destination-account restore principal on the backup vault and applicable KMS key, and verify supported cross-account copy permissions.
- Disable CloudTrail in the destination account to eliminate restore authorization failures.
Explanation
Correct Answer
C:An account boundary is an authorization boundary: source IAM rights do not implicitly confer backup-vault access or permission to use the destination key during restore.
Incorrect Answers
A:The restore is mediated by AWS Backup and its destination vault/key, not necessarily by the production bucket's data-plane policy.
B:An elevated source role cannot override an explicit denial or absent permissions in the separate recovery account.
D:CloudTrail records API activity; it neither grants vault or key permissions nor causes access-control denial by itself.
Question 596
A company runs a supported legacy Windows application on on-premises VMs. Nightly backups are too coarse for its few-seconds recovery-point goal, and operations needs to launch usable EC2 recovery instances during a regional site failure. Which AWS recovery architecture aligns with this requirement?
- Continue taking one daily AMI-style backup and assume it captures all later writes until the next day without replication.
- Configure scheduled AWS Backup point-in-time recovery points for the on-premises servers and assume each interval provides seconds-level replication and immediately bootable EC2 instances.
- Run AWS DataSync every few minutes to copy the VM file shares into S3 and assume this produces bootable EC2 recovery instances with continuously replicated disk state.
- Use AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery with a supported replication agent, staging subnet, recovery launch settings and tested recovery drills.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:Elastic Disaster Recovery continuously replicates supported server blocks and can launch AWS recovery instances with low RPO, subject to configuration and actual workload boot/recovery time.
Incorrect Answers
A:Periodic snapshots have an RPO bounded by backup frequency and cannot deliver continuous change capture for seconds-level data loss.
B:Periodic backups do not continuously replicate every changed VM block for a seconds-level RPO, nor do they by themselves supply the same recovery-instance conversion and drill orchestration as Elastic Disaster Recovery.
C:DataSync handles file and object transfers, not ongoing VM block replication or launchable EC2 disaster-recovery orchestration. Copying directories does not preserve the application server and disk state needed for the seconds-level RPO.
Question 597
A migration architect proposes one AWS Backup copy plan for EBS, RDS and an additional database type across several Regions. The plan assumes every resource supports an identical one-step cross-Region copy and encryption configuration. What is the correct pre-deployment action?
- Validate AWS Backup support, copy behavior, destination encryption requirements and quotas for each resource type and target Region.
- Assume copying EBS successfully proves every other backup resource supports the same operation.
- Use the production account root login for every copy and omit regional service verification.
- Turn off automated backups because a uniform policy is more important than usable recovery points.
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:AWS Backup resource-type support and copy restrictions differ; a trial copy and restore expose incompatible paths before an outage.
Incorrect Answers
B:EBS snapshot support does not establish the supported copy matrix or key requirements for unrelated database resources.
C:Root identity cannot make an unsupported resource copy operation valid and increases operational risk.
D:Suppressing backups removes recovery capability without resolving the per-resource compatibility assumptions.
Question 598
A finance system retains compliant encrypted backups. The auditor asks for evidence each month that a backup can actually be restored and the restored service passes a health check—not just that a vault has retained a snapshot. Which approach provides repeatable evidence?
- Turn on Backup Vault Lock only; retention immutability automatically tests whether every application will start after restoration.
- Define an AWS Backup restore testing plan and validate completed test restore jobs using an EventBridge-triggered application health-check workflow.
- Extend CloudTrail Event History retention, which executes database restore drills automatically at the end of each month.
- Raise the primary EBS volume’s provisioned IOPS, which guarantees any backup contains a bootable recovery point.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:AWS Backup restore testing schedules actual restoration attempts, and a validation workflow can check restored resource health and report results.
Incorrect Answers
A:Vault Lock helps protect retention from deletion or modification; it does not itself prove restore success or application health.
C:CloudTrail records API activity but does not schedule or perform recoveries.
D:Higher live disk IOPS does not establish that a recovery point can be restored and verified.
Question 599
A regulated company already stores supported recovery points in a logically air-gapped AWS Backup vault. Its incident-response plan must allow a designated independent recovery team to restore while the vault-owning account is compromised or inaccessible. The current AWS RAM share could be revoked unilaterally by the vault owner. Which access arrangement directly addresses that emergency-control requirement?
- Keep an ordinary AWS Backup vault in the production account and grant its administrator backup:DeleteRecoveryPoint, assuming a resource policy provides tamper-proof recovery.
- Depend solely on the current AWS RAM share to the recovery account, because the vault-owning account cannot revoke a RAM share after it has been accepted.
- Configure supported AWS Backup Multi-party approval with a separate recovery account and approval team for access to the logically air-gapped vault; test the approved recovery path.
- Turn off AWS Backup Vault Lock compliance mode and use a long IAM role-session duration so the recovery account can overwrite retained recovery points.
Explanation
Correct Answer
C:AWS Backup logically air-gapped vaults are compliance-mode Vault Lock protected; supported Multi-party approval can provide a separate recovery account with threshold-approved emergency restore access even when the owning account is unavailable. The approval team and recovery organization must be configured and tested before an incident.
Incorrect Answers
A:A standard same-account vault with production administration privileges does not give independent recovery access after an account compromise; allowing backup deletion further weakens the protection.
B:A vault owner can revoke RAM-based sharing. RAM sharing can support ordinary restore testing, but it does not itself supply the multi-party-controlled recovery access required when the owner is untrusted or unavailable.
D:Disabling compliance-mode retention would undermine backup immutability and does not create independent restore authority. Extending an IAM session cannot replace the supported controlled recovery access arrangement.
Question 600
An application performs nightly backups, but data corruption may go unnoticed for 21 days. The current backup lifecycle deletes every recovery point after seven days. Which adjustment meaningfully changes the recovery capability?
- Double the CPU allocation of the backup monitoring instance while keeping seven-day retention.
- Enable more frequent backups but keep only the latest seven days of recovery points.
- Rely solely on an application health check that is green after the latest backup.
- Extend backup retention beyond the plausible detection window, accounting for policy and restore-point frequency.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:Recovery requires a usable restore point from before corruption. A seven-day horizon cannot provide one for a 21-day undetected problem.
Incorrect Answers
A:Monitoring CPU capacity does not preserve older clean data when recovery points already expired.
B:Higher frequency within the same short history does not recover data from before a 21-day-old corruption event.
C:Availability checks can succeed while corrupted logical records remain undetected in every retained backup.