SAP-C02 Question 203
Select 3A company operates a critical web application that must maintain high availability and minimize downtime in case of a disaster. They currently operate in a single AWS Region but want to enhance their disaster recovery strategy. The company decides to implement a warm standby architecture across two AWS Regions. Which of the following steps should they take to properly implement and optimize this disaster recovery strategy?
- A
Deploy the application stack in the secondary Region with scaled-down resources to reduce costs, and enable replication of critical data.
- B
Use Route 53 health checks and DNS failover to redirect traffic to the secondary Region during a disaster.
- C
Set up an Amazon CloudFront distribution to cache content globally and reduce the need for a secondary Region.
- D
Regularly test failover processes to validate that the secondary Region can handle production traffic during a disaster.
- E
Ensure that the secondary Region runs at full capacity at all times to immediately handle traffic without scaling.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answers: A, B, D
Explanation
A warm standby disaster recovery strategy involves deploying a scaled-down version of the application in a secondary Region to minimize costs while ensuring readiness for failover. Critical data must be replicated, health checks and DNS failover mechanisms (such as Route 53) are used to redirect traffic, and regular failover tests are essential to confirm the setup's effectiveness. This strategy strikes a balance between cost and recovery time, making it suitable for applications requiring low downtime without the expense of a fully active secondary Region.
- A. Correct.
Correct. In a warm standby disaster recovery strategy, the secondary Region operates with scaled-down resources to minimize costs, while critical data is replicated. This ensures readiness for scaling up during a disaster.
- B. Correct.
Correct. Route 53 health checks and DNS failover are essential for redirecting traffic to the secondary Region when the primary Region becomes unavailable.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. While Amazon CloudFront can improve content delivery performance, it does not replace or reduce the need for a secondary Region in a disaster recovery scenario.
- D. Correct.
Correct. Regular testing of failover processes is vital to ensure that the warm standby setup functions as expected and the secondary Region is ready to handle production workloads.
- E. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Running the secondary Region at full capacity at all times is not cost-effective and contradicts the principles of a warm standby strategy. This approach is more suitable for a multi-site active-active configuration.