AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional SAP-C02 Practice Question

The correct approach is to use a cross-region read replica. This is a fully managed AWS feature for RDS that provides asynchronous replication to a different region, which is ideal for disaster recovery. In the event of a disaster, the read replica in the DR region can be promoted to a standalone, writable primary instance, which provides a low RTO. Because the replication is continuous and asynchronous, it also provides a low RPO.

The option to use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication is less optimal. While it can achieve the goal, DMS is a more complex service to manage, involving replication instances, endpoints, and tasks. It introduces more operational overhead compared to the native, integrated read replica feature, which goes against the requirement to minimize overhead. The strategy of copying automated snapshots to another region using S3 Cross-Region Replication is a valid DR pattern, but it is for backup and restore, not continuous replication. This method would result in a much higher RPO (potentially hours) and RTO (time to restore the snapshot) compared to a read replica, failing to meet the low RPO/RTO requirement. Finally, setting up manual logical replication using an EC2 instance is the least desirable option. It completely contradicts the requirement to use a fully managed service and minimize operational overhead, as it requires manual configuration, management, and maintenance of the replication process on a self-managed server.