Question 100
An AWS Organization has already enabled AWS Backup cross-account copy. A workload-account plan copies customer-managed-KMS-encrypted RDS recovery points into a security-account vault. A test copy fails AccessDenied: the source role can initiate CopyFromBackupVault, but the destination vault has no inbound-copy permission and the source encryption key is not usable by the copy principal. Which configuration corrects this specific failure?
- Increase the backup source vault retention period and retry, keeping the destination vault resource policy and KMS permissions unchanged.
- Authorize backup:CopyIntoBackupVault in the destination vault resource policy for the permitted source, provide compatible source customer-managed KMS key access and eligible destination encryption permissions, then retest the copy.
- Enable S3 Block Public Access on the workload data lake and assume it grants AWS Backup cross-account vault copy and KMS decrypt permission.
- Create another backup plan in the source account with the same roles and destination policy omissions, expecting a different schedule to fix AccessDenied.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:Cross-account backup copy requires destination-vault CopyInto permissions and cryptographic access to encrypted source backups and eligible destination keying; the revised trust permits the job without broad access.
Incorrect Answers
A:Retention changes do not authorize an inter-account copy into the target vault or unlock the source KMS key for the copy workflow.
C:S3 Block Public Access is an object access control unrelated to the required AWS Backup vault policy and KMS-copy permissions.
D:A schedule change cannot satisfy missing resource-policy and key authorizations; the original copy failure would remain.
Question 101
A customer support application serves a single Region and a disaster drill shows that Route 53 failover records update correctly but some users see old endpoints for much longer than intended. Which operational fact should the architect account for?
- Lower Route 53 record TTL but assume recursive resolvers and client connections always honor it immediately during an incident.
- Make the Route 53 health check more frequent while ignoring existing DNS caches and client reconnection strategies.
- DNS TTL and resolver/client caching can delay traffic movement; test actual failover with client retry and connection behavior.
- Increase the DNS TTL to several hours to reduce resolver load and assume this accelerates failover.
Explanation
Correct Answer
C:Authoritative DNS changes are not guaranteed to invalidate cached answers or existing connections immediately across every recursive resolver.
Incorrect Answers
A:TTL reductions can help some resolvers but do not force all caches or persistent sockets to switch at exactly the desired moment.
B:Faster health detection does not change what cached DNS records clients retain or whether active TCP sessions retry.
D:Longer cached answers can prolong connections to the impaired endpoint; recovery tests should model realistic TTL and caching behavior.
Question 102
An executive dashboard uses a DynamoDB multi-Region eventual-consistency (MREC) global table with writable replicas in two Regions. During a partition, both Regions update the same customer record. The business expects the table to merge conflicting updates into a globally serializable result without application design changes. Which architectural clarification is necessary?
- Use MREC global tables and local conditional writes at each Region, assuming they globally serialize concurrent updates to the same item.
- Explain the replication and conflict-resolution semantics and redesign applications that require globally serialized conflicting updates.
- Increase write capacity in both Regions and treat lower throttling as equivalent to a globally conflict-free transaction log.
- Add an eventually consistent global secondary index to the existing MREC table and expect it to coordinate distributed writers.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:DynamoDB global tables support multi-Region writes but asynchronous propagation and conflict handling do not automatically provide a single global serial order.
Incorrect Answers
A:MREC conditions are local and replication is asynchronous; the application must explicitly control concurrent writes/conflicts.
C:Throughput improvement does not change replication conflict semantics or guarantee a total serial order of writes.
D:GSIs serve query access patterns; they do not resolve cross-Region write conflicts or enforce a global lock.
Question 103
A trading analytics system uses Multi-AZ RDS instances but has a regulatory requirement to survive a complete AWS Region outage. Leaders claim Multi-AZ deployment meets the requirement because its standby is not in the primary AZ. What should the architect explain?
- Increase automated backup retention only inside the original Region, assuming backups remain accessible through a complete regional outage.
- Multi-AZ handles local AZ failures; design separate cross-Region data recovery and application restoration to meet Region-wide DR requirements.
- Deploy another Multi-AZ instance in the same Region and treat separate Availability Zones as separate AWS Regions.
- Add a second same-Region RDS read replica and plan to promote it after losing the entire original Region.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:An Availability Zone is contained in one Region, so its standby remains within the failure domain excluded by the business objective.
Incorrect Answers
A:Regional backups/standbys do not necessarily survive a full Region isolation; an independent off-Region recovery design is required.
C:AZs share a regional control and location boundary; cross-Region replicas or backups protect against wider failure.
D:A same-Region reader cannot serve as the independently accessible recovery target for a Region-wide outage.
Question 104
An organization has replicated a critical API to a secondary Region, but a regional evacuation exercise requires rapidly changing the active routing controls even when the original Route 53 API control plane might be unavailable. Which resilience capability should it examine?
- Use ordinary Route 53 failover DNS records only and expect operators to manually edit them using the failing control plane during isolation.
- Use CloudFront cache invalidations as the regional traffic-recovery control for dynamic API requests.
- Rely on a Route 53 ARC readiness-check status to automatically transfer customer requests without configuring any routing control.
- Evaluate Route 53 Application Recovery Controller routing controls and recovery readiness for tested traffic-shift operations.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:Application Recovery Controller provides specialized readiness and routing-control workflows designed to support resilient multi-Region recovery operations.
Incorrect Answers
A:The requirement calls for resilient routing-control action even when the ordinary Route 53 API path is impaired; ARC routing controls are designed for recovery.
B:Cache invalidations do not select the active regional application endpoint or supply ARC routing controls.
C:Readiness checks assess resource preparedness; traffic routing requires separate configured controls or health-based failover.
Question 105
A trading application has cross-Region Aurora replication and a low RPO requirement. A controlled resilience exercise shows lag spikes above the RPO when primary-region bulk loads run. What evidence-based response should the architect recommend?
- Measure secondary replication lag under realistic peak writes and revise capacity, workload scheduling or the stated RPO before claiming compliance.
- Assume Aurora global database replication has zero RPO and ignore the observed lag during bulk-loading windows.
- Increase the secondary instance class without comparing replication latency again, and declare the original RPO guaranteed.
- Increase Route 53 DNS health-check frequency and assume it reduces the underlying data replication backlog.
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:An asynchronous regional replica can lag under load; the demonstrated data-loss exposure must be tested against required RPO.
Incorrect Answers
B:Aurora cross-Region replication can lag, so the measured peak conditions can violate the advertised RPO.
C:Capacity adjustments are plausible but the updated RPO must be measured under realistic load and tested in failover drills.
D:Faster routing detection does not make cross-Region database replication more synchronous or reduce bulk-write lag.
Question 106
A company replicates data to a warm standby Region and tests application failover. The business requires a ten-minute RTO, but engineers measure 28 minutes because required security groups, secret replicas and endpoint settings are created manually during the outage. Which improvement addresses the breach?
- Use IaC to deploy only web instances during failover and continue recreating secrets, security groups and endpoints by hand.
- Increase the standby DB instance size and assume database capacity is responsible for the measured manual provisioning delay.
- Raise Route 53 DNS TTL before each test and expect clients to wait while the team manually creates recovery resources.
- Preprovision or automate the complete recovery dependency chain with IaC and rehearsed promotion and traffic-routing steps.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:Recovery time includes all dependency preparation, not only database promotion; automating omitted components shortens the tested RTO.
Incorrect Answers
A:Partial automation omits the exact recovery dependencies causing excess RTO; all required resources should be prestaged or reproducibly deployed.
B:The identified delay comes from unprepared application network and secret infrastructure, not database CPU throughput.
C:DNS caching delays rather than accelerates an underprovisioned standby. Minimize manual dependencies and rehearse end-to-end cutover.
Question 107
An S3 recovery bucket receives replicated objects from production. A primary-region administrator deletes a source object using a delete marker, and the compliance team assumes the deletion will always replicate in the same way as object versions. What must the architecture explicitly verify?
- Enable S3 object versioning and assume all source delete markers replicate automatically with identical retention and replication semantics.
- Enable S3 Replication Time Control and assume it overrides whether delete markers are eligible for replication under current rules.
- Turn on S3 Object Lock at the destination and assume it automatically copies every delete marker and overwrites protected object versions.
- Confirm S3 replication rules and delete-marker replication behavior for the required versioning, retention and recovery policy.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:Delete markers have specific replication semantics and configuration; object copy success alone does not prove deletion behavior.
Incorrect Answers
A:Delete marker replication depends on rule configuration and behavior; not all delete operations or retention scenarios replicate identically.
B:RTC concerns supported replication timing, not a universal override of source delete marker selection and retention behavior.
C:Object Lock protects retained versions; it does not automatically reproduce source deletion behavior or bypass destination retention.
Question 108
A business uses S3 Replication Time Control for eligible cross-Region object replication and has a compliance requirement that most objects replicate within a specified time window. Which metric-based test is most relevant?
- Track only the number of replicated S3 objects each month and infer the minutes required to replicate an individual new object.
- Monitor only the CloudWatch health of EC2 source instances and use their network throughput as the S3 RTC completion metric.
- Monitor S3 replication latency and pending-operation metrics and validate RTC-supported completion against the documented service target.
- Check the destination S3 bucket size once per day and assume bytes present prove each object met the configured fifteen-minute goal.
Explanation
Correct Answer
C:RTC and replication metrics provide replication-delay evidence; successful PutObject alone says nothing about destination arrival timing.
Incorrect Answers
A:Monthly counts cannot prove replication latency or SLA performance for newly created eligible objects.
B:EC2 health is not the S3 replication time or pending-operations telemetry for managed bucket replication.
D:A daily bucket snapshot cannot establish per-window replication timing; RTC metrics/events are the proper evidence.
Question 109
A company has an isolated AWS Backup destination vault with the required immutable retention and cross-account copy configured. Auditors now want repeatable findings showing which active EC2/RDS resources violate the required backup frequency, retention and encryption controls, plus scheduled evidence reports in S3. The goal is compliance assessment, not creating another copy or changing vault locks. What should be added?
- Create an AWS Backup restore testing plan but omit Audit Manager controls and scheduled compliance evidence reporting.
- Use AWS Backup Audit Manager frameworks with supported backup controls, required AWS Config resource tracking, and scheduled compliance report plans.
- Use AWS Config raw resource inventory without Backup Audit Manager frameworks or control-oriented reports.
- Create a second copy of each backup vault and assume redundancy automatically proves all active workloads meet required frequency and retention.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:Backup Audit Manager evaluates defined backup controls, uses supported resource tracking and can generate daily/on-demand reports for evidence.
Incorrect Answers
A:Restore tests validate recovery viability but do not by themselves provide the requested standardized frequency, retention, encryption and scheduled findings reports.
C:Raw configuration history helps investigation but does not directly package the backup governance controls and scheduled audit reports.
D:Backup-copy redundancy does not measure compliance across resources or produce the requested policy evidence.
Question 110
An operations team uses RDS automated backups with a recovery objective requiring restoration to a specific minute before an accidental bulk update. It has only monthly manual snapshots in its documented recovery plan. Which recovery technique better fits?
- Restore the latest manual snapshot and replay no transaction logs, even when the target minute is weeks after the snapshot was created.
- Use Aurora/RDS Multi-AZ automatic failover to undo an accidental but successfully committed database update.
- Copy the most recent RDS snapshot to another Region but omit transaction-log-based point-in-time recovery within retention.
- Use RDS point-in-time restore within the supported automated-backup retention window and validate the new restored instance.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:PITR uses automated backups and logs to select a recovery moment rather than accepting the much coarser monthly snapshot gap.
Incorrect Answers
A:A manual snapshot captures one point in time and cannot alone recover to an arbitrary recent minute.
B:Failover provides availability and normally replicates committed changes; it does not reverse logical errors from past transactions.
C:Regional copies help disaster recovery but do not meet minute-specific logical restore unless the supported PITR backup window is used.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional SAP-C02 Practice Tests