Amazon RDS Typical Exam Questions — AWS Solutions Architect Associate Complete Course

Chapter 13: Amazon RDS, Aurora & Database Migration Service Solutions Architect Associate Exam Questions

The last chapter on Amazon RDS and Aurora was extensive; we need to know many of their features for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam. Let’s see the typical questions we are usually asked to see if we have finished understanding them!

Amazon RDS Practice Exam Questions for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification.

Remember that all the chapters from the course can be found in the following link.

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

The DB of an application runs on Amazon RDS. We want that a reporting tool to access this data. How can we achieve it, considering that the reporting tool must be highly available without impacting the application’s performance?

1. Create a cross-region Multi-AZ deployment and create a read replica in the second region
2. Move the instance to Amazon EC2 and create and manage snapshots manually
3. Create a Multi-AZ RDS Read Replica of the RDS DB instance
4. Create a Single-AZ RDS Read Replica of the RDS DB instance. Create a second Single-AZ RDS Read Replica from the replica

Solution: 3. Amazon RDS Read Replicas can offload read traffic from your primary database instance. This is exactly what you need to support your reporting tool without impacting the performance of your application.

How Amazon RDS Read Replicas work.

A MySQL database is going to be migrated to the AWS Cloud. The cloud DB should be a managed solution that supports high availability and automatic failover in the event of an Availability Zone (AZ) outage. How can we achieve it?

1. Use the AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to directly migrate the database to an Amazon RDS MySQL Multi-AZ deployment.
2. Use the AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to directly migrate the database to Amazon RDS MySQL using the Schema Conversion Tool (SCT)
3. Use the AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to directly migrate the database to Amazon EC2.
4. Use the AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to directly migrate the database to Amazon EBS.

Solution: 1. The AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) can be used to migrate databases to AWS quickly and securely. The source database remains fully operational during the migration, minimizing downtime to applications that rely on the database. You don’t need to use the Schema Conversion Tool (SCT), as it’s unnecessary to migrate to the same service, in this case, MySQL to MySQL.

How AWS Database Migration Service works.

How can we encrypt a master database (which is not encrypted) in an Amazon RDS Read Replica deployed in a separate region?

1. Enable encryption when creating the cross-region Read Replica
2. Encrypt a snapshot from the master DB instance, create an encrypted cross-region Read Replica from the snapshot
3. Encrypt a snapshot from the master DB instance, create a new encrypted master DB instance, and then make an encrypted Read Replica
4. Encrypt a snapshot from the master DB instance, create a new encrypted master DB instance, and then make an encrypted cross-region Read Replica

Solution: 4. You can enable encryption for an Amazon RDS DB instance only when you create it, not after the DB instance is created. You can’t have an encrypted read replica of an unencrypted DB instance or an unencrypted read replica of an encrypted DB instance. You can’t either restore an unencrypted backup or snapshot to an encrypted DB instance.
Because of the previous limitations, you should follow the process indicated in the solution. You can read more information about this at the following link.

We need to design a managed multi-region database with replication. The requirements indicate that the master database should be in the EU (Ireland) region, and databases will be in 4 other regions to service local read traffic. Which AWS service can deliver these requirements with a cost-effective and secure approach?

1. RDS with Multi-AZ
2. RDS with cross-region Read Replicas
3. EC2 instances with EBS replication
4. EC2 instances with CloudFront

Solution: 2. This is important to understand. RDS with Multi-AZ provides high availability within a single region but does not support replication across regions. In this case, we’d need Cross-region Read Replicas, which allow you to replicate your database to multiple other regions. This will distribute read traffic to the local replicas in each region, providing low-latency access to the data. You can see this approach in the following image:

How AWS Read Replicas Work.

A company is migrating an on-premises 10 TB MySQL database to AWS. The company expects the database to quadruple in size, and the business requirement is that we must keep lag under 100 milliseconds. Which Amazon RDS engine meets these requirements?

1. Amazon Aurora
2. Oracle
3. Microsoft SQL Server
4. MySQL

Solution: 1. AWS Aurora is the MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud. It’s 5x faster than MySQL and x3 than PostgreSQL, at 1/10th of the cost. AWS Aurora automatically increases the storage to 128TB per DB instance. It can handle replication with lag times typically under ten milliseconds, making it suitable for this business requirement. The other engines don’t have the same scalability and low replication latency as Amazon Aurora in AWS. You can see how Amazon Aurora works in the following image:

How Amazon RDS Aurora works.

An application requires a MySQL database which will only be used several times a week for short periods. The database needs to provide automatic instantiation and scaling. Which database service is most suitable?

1. Amazon RDS MySQL
2. Amazon EC2 instance with MySQL database installed
3. Amazon Aurora
4. Amazon Aurora Serverless

Solution: 4. Amazon Aurora Serverless is an on-demand, auto-scaling version of Amazon Aurora, designed to start automatically, shut down, and scale capacity up or down based on your application’s needs. It’s a simple, cost-effective option for infrequent workloads, which is ideal in this scenario since the database will only be used several times a week for short periods.

A web application runs on a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances in a Multi-AZ Autoscaling group behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The instances store data in an Amazon Aurora database. Which architecture would make the application more resilient to sporadic increases in request rates? (Select TWO)

1. Add more EC2 instances
2. Add Amazon Aurora Replicas
3. Change the DB engine to MySQL
4. Add an AWS Global Accelerator endpoint
5. Add an Amazon CloudFront distribution in front of the ALB

Solution: 2, 5. This architecture is already highly resilient, but we can improve the performance degradation using Amazon Aurora Read Replicas to serve read traffic and improve performance. Amazon CloudFront can help us cache content closer to users, resulting in better performance. It also helps in absorbing traffic spikes by serving cached content.

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