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Amazon RDS Multi-AZ Deployments

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Multi-AZ (Availability Zone) deployments are used to improve the availability and fault tolerance of Amazon RDS databases. They implement synchronous replication of a database instance to a standby instance in another Availability Zone within the same region. During failover, RDS will automatically…

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AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Amazon RDS Multi-AZ Deployments Example Questions

Test your knowledge of Amazon RDS Multi-AZ Deployments

Question 1

A web application running on EC2 instances consumes an RDS Multi-AZ PostgreSQL database. Due to a sudden surge in traffic, you want to add more read capacity to handle the workload. Which solution would you choose?

Correct Answer: Create Read Replicas of the primary RDS instance.

Creating Read Replicas of the primary RDS instance allows you to distribute the read workload, providing more read capacity. Enhanced monitoring, increasing allocated storage, modifying security groups, upgrading the primary instance, and enabling RDS performance insights won't directly address read capacity.

Question 2

You operate a critical production database on Amazon RDS in a Multi-AZ deployment with high write throughput. To minimize downtime and data loss specifically during routine maintenance (e.g., patching), which maintenance approach should you adopt?

Correct Answer: Schedule a maintenance window so RDS applies engine updates to the Multi-AZ standby first and then performs an automatic failover; keep automated backups with point-in-time recovery enabled and regularly test failover while monitoring replication health.

In RDS Multi-AZ, synchronous replication to a standby minimizes data loss. The best way to minimize downtime during maintenance is to let RDS patch the standby first and then fail over, reducing impact to a brief failover window. A defined maintenance window ensures this happens predictably outside peak hours. Automated backups with point-in-time recovery protect against logical errors and provide recovery beyond Multi-AZ failover. Regular failover testing and monitoring replication/health ensure the process actually meets the required recovery objectives.

Question 3

While designing the database tier for a new application, you are deciding between Multi-AZ and Single-AZ RDS deployments. What are the primary benefits of using an RDS Multi-AZ deployment?

Correct Answer: High availability, automatic failover, and data durability.

An RDS Multi-AZ deployment provides high availability, automatic failover, and data durability. Other features such as cost-efficiency, static IP addresses, global distribution, unlimited storage, regional redundancy, scheduled scaling, or direct access to instance metadata are not directly related to Multi-AZ deployments.

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