Amazon AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 Practice Test 41

Question 400

An SNS topic publishes a critical alert to two endpoints. The team subscribed only direct HTTP consumers with no durable queue, and a consumer was unavailable long enough to exhaust delivery retries. Why was its copy lost?

SNS topics inherently retain every message for arbitrary replay by all late subscribers.
A CloudFront cache TTL determines whether SNS messages survive an HTTP outage.
Set the SNS HTTP subscription delivery retry policy to only a few seconds and assume it becomes an unlimited durable independent backlog after that period.
The delivery path lacked a durable per-consumer buffer and exhausted its retry/delivery policy.

Explanation

Correct Answer

Separate SQS subscriptions can retain each consumer’s events while downstream processing is unavailable.

Incorrect Answers

SNS is fanout delivery, not an unlimited replayable stream.

CDN caching does not retain SNS delivery copies.

Direct HTTP delivery has bounded retries; configure a durable SQS subscription or supported delivery-failure route when offline retention is required.

Question 401

A Step Functions workflow retries a request with validation error InvalidCustomerId five times, delaying user feedback. Which policy defect is responsible?

Step Functions cannot branch on failures.
Send the failed Step Functions Task through the same Retry branch again with an unchanged invalid customer ID, assuming another attempt validates the identifier.
The Retry configuration treats a permanent business validation error as transient and should route it to a terminal Catch or failure state.
Increasing state transition limits makes a malformed identifier acceptable.

Explanation

Correct Answer

Retries should target recoverable errors with bounded backoff; invalid identifiers are not repaired by waiting.

Incorrect Answers

Catch and Retry support error-specific handling.

A permanent validation error stays permanent without changed request data; use Catch/terminal validation handling instead of retrying the same wrong input.

More transitions do not change the logical precondition.

Question 402

A transaction client retries the same invoice after a network timeout with a new payment operation ID. A duplicate payment is created. Why did the retry strategy fail?

Retries are always safe without keys when a network request times out.
Assign a new provider payment idempotency key to every retry and assume different keys tell the provider to deduplicate the already committed charge.
Enabling a CloudFront distribution guarantees exactly-once financial writes.
The client lost the original idempotency identity and did not reconcile the first possibly committed write.

Explanation

Correct Answer

A new operation ID can create a distinct transaction; keep stable keys and query authoritative provider status.

Incorrect Answers

Transport timeout does not prove the server did not commit.

A new key identifies a different business operation to a provider. Stable idempotency identity and querying the original payment state prevent duplicate settlement.

A CDN cannot deduplicate provider transactions.

Question 403

A DR plan specifies 30-minute maximum outage but requires restoring terabytes from cold offsite archives that take several hours to retrieve and transfer. What requirement is violated?

RPO only, because stored archives retain the information indefinitely.
The tested or estimated recovery time exceeds the business RTO.
S3 object metadata alone defines RTO without any restore process.
Choose S3 Glacier Deep Archive as the primary five-minute restoration source without testing its retrieval lead time against the required 30-minute app RTO.

Explanation

Correct Answer

Storage retrieval and application rebuild must fit the time-to-service objective, not merely preserve data.

Incorrect Answers

RTO is elapsed recovery; RPO concerns maximum data loss.

A storage timestamp cannot prove service recovery duration.

Archive storage retrieval and the full app rebuild can take longer than the business recovery window; storage cost savings alone do not make the RTO feasible.

Question 404

A daily backup policy reports success, yet a test restore fails because the only KMS key for backup decryption was deleted during account cleanup. Which missing dependency caused recovery failure?

Cross-copy the encrypted backup to another account but retain its only decrypt-capable KMS key in an account where the key is scheduled for permanent deletion.
The recovery procedure did not preserve or validate the required encryption-key access and lifecycle.
CloudFront’s origin cache did not persist the database schema.
A successful backup job guarantees decryption even after key deletion.

Explanation

Correct Answer

A backup is unusable without its supported decryption key and permissions; restore tests must include cryptographic dependencies.

Incorrect Answers

Cross-account or cross-Region placement does not automatically preserve cryptographic access. A usable key and authorized recovery role are necessary to restore protected bytes.

A CDN is not a backup decryption service.

Backup completion does not override KMS key destruction.

Question 405

A database spreads its redo log and data over two EBS volumes. Operators took independent snapshots two hours apart and restored mismatched database states. What consistency guarantee was missing?

Every snapshot timestamp represents the same application transaction boundary automatically.
Enable EBS snapshot encryption and assume it automatically coordinates SQL redo-log and data-volume capture into one transaction-consistent checkpoint.
A coordinated multi-volume snapshot set, plus application-consistent quiescing where required.
EBS encryption changes all snapshot timestamps to a single point.

Explanation

Correct Answer

Snapshots taken separately may capture inconsistent points for interdependent file systems.

Incorrect Answers

Uncoordinated snapshots lack that guarantee.

Encryption protects blocks but does not serialize related multi-volume snapshots or flush application data. Coordinated snapshots and database-aware recovery are separate requirements.

Encryption is orthogonal to capture timing.

Question 406

A team restores a DynamoDB table using PITR to a new table named OrdersRecovered after an accidental production data change. The recovered table is active and contains the desired earlier records, but the production API still returns the damaged data. Which deployment step was missed?

Change the RDS SQL connection string while the application’s actual DynamoDB TableName setting still points to the damaged production table.
Run RestoreTableToPointInTime again against the existing production table because every previous restore should automatically overwrite its rows in place.
Perform a controlled application cutover or data reconciliation that directs reads/writes to the new restored table, updating referenced resource names and supporting settings.
Change the recovered table to a global secondary index of the original table; a PITR restore is invisible unless it becomes an index.

Explanation

Correct Answer

The restored table is a separate resource; safely switching the application or reconciling its data—and restoring relevant streams, tags and policies—is required to serve it.

Incorrect Answers

Changing an unrelated RDS endpoint cannot redirect DynamoDB GetItem/UpdateItem requests. Update the application’s actual table reference after validating the restored table.

DynamoDB PITR table restore creates a distinct table and does not rewrite the original in place; another restore alone does not change the deployed application configuration.

A recovered DynamoDB table is not a GSI, and an index cannot replace a database-level production table cutover.

Question 407

AWS Resilience Hub reports that a workload’s assessed RTO exceeds its policy. The team treats the report itself as a restored production site. What misunderstanding occurred?

Resilience Hub assesses resilience posture and recommendations; it does not perform the actual failover or restore.
Resilience Hub cannot assess AWS resource dependencies or recovery targets.
A passing dashboard eliminates the need for backups or failover tests.
Configure an RTO target in Resilience Hub but leave the actual EC2/RDS failover and recovery automation unimplemented, assuming target definition performs the failover.

Explanation

Correct Answer

Assessment evidence is planning input and must be followed by tested controls that change the workload.

Incorrect Answers

It can evaluate supported application resource posture.

Assessment is not operational recovery evidence.

Policies and assessment recommend improvements. Without implemented and tested recovery mechanisms, the application still cannot meet a recovery-time promise.

Question 408

A fault-injection experiment terminated a production-like node, but the team claims two-AZ recovery without verifying that client traffic stayed within its SLO. Which evidence gap remains?

The experiment measured resource disruption but not the end-to-end workload recovery and user-impact outcomes.
A successful FIS API invocation automatically proves client SLOs were met.
Count terminated EC2 instances in the fault-injection experiment but omit client success/error-rate and recovery duration measurements.
Changing the ALB hostname guarantees the service survived.

Explanation

Correct Answer

FIS can inject faults; measured traffic, errors and recovery time establish whether the architecture actually meets objectives.

Incorrect Answers

Executing a fault is not proof of graceful recovery.

A fault count is not a demonstration of restored service. End-to-end application SLO signals and timing are needed for resilience acceptance.

Names do not show availability or latency during the experiment.

Question 409

The failover runbook for Aurora Global Database assumes the company can add Region B as a secondary to its current engine version. When the team tries to configure the global database, Region B does not support that Aurora engine/version combination. What planning check was missing?

Increase Region A EC2 vCPU quota and assume this enables any Aurora engine version in Region B.
Use Route 53 primary/secondary DNS records before creating a compatible database resource in Region B.
Verify Aurora Global Database engine/version and target-Region compatibility, then choose a supported upgrade or DR design before asserting region recovery.
Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration and assume it changes the Aurora service version offered in the destination Region.

Explanation

Correct Answer

Aurora Global Database support varies by engine/version and Region; the candidate secondary Region and required version must be verified before the recovery plan is feasible.

Incorrect Answers

EC2 account quotas do not change engine-version service availability for a particular RDS/Aurora Region.

DNS routing does not provision a globally replicated database that a target Region cannot support.

S3 upload transport settings have no authority over Aurora engine offerings or cross-Region compatibility.

Question 410

An ALB passes target health checks because /healthz always returns 200, while the app’s database dependency is unavailable and every purchase request fails. Why is the health signal inadequate?

The health endpoint tests only process liveness and not the dependency readiness needed for serving purchases.
HTTP 200 automatically guarantees every downstream business transaction succeeds.
Return HTTP 200 from /healthz when the purchase database is offline and assume a TCP-ready process proves checkout can commit inventory.
ALB cannot examine any HTTP health endpoint responses.

Explanation

Correct Answer

A meaningful readiness check must reflect conditions relevant to accepting traffic without introducing unsafe coupling.

Incorrect Answers

Health probes sample defined behavior, not every application path.

A process-liveness check can mask a critical dependency failure. Relevant readiness logic must reflect the operations users actually need to complete.

ALB health checks can use configured paths and success codes.

Pass Your Amazon AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 Exam Easy!

Question 400

Explanation

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Question 401

Explanation

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Question 402

Explanation

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Question 403

Explanation

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Question 404

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Question 405

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Question 406

Explanation

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Question 407

Explanation

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Question 408

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Question 409

Explanation

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Question 410

Explanation

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AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 Practice Tests