A librarian proposes running the primary catalog database only at a CloudFront edge location to 'be closer to patrons.' What clarification is most accurate?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Edges are great for cached pamphlets, not for being the one true catalog database. An edge location is not a full Region stand-in for primary stateful systems. Keep the authoritative DB in a proper Region (with HA), and let the edge accelerate what should be cached.
Full Explanation
When a librarian proposes running the primary catalog database only at a CloudFront edge location to be closer to patrons, the accurate clarification is that edge locations are not a full Region replacement for running primary databases. Edge locations primarily cache and deliver content (and support related edge capabilities). Authoritative relational catalog databases belong on Regional managed database services (such as Amazon RDS/Aurora) deployed with Multi-AZ patterns, optionally accelerated by read caching—not hosted as primary systems “only at an edge location.”
Edge locations do not fully replace Regions for all primary relational databases, nor does every edge location include a complete set of AWS Regional services. Primary databases are also not required to run exclusively on Wavelength for correctness; Wavelength solves ultra-low-latency 5G edge compute cases, not library catalog hosting by default.
Exam caveat: Edges ≠ Regions. Questions that try to move primary databases solely to CDN edges are testing whether you know the limits of edge locations.
Operational check: keep the catalog database in a Regional Multi-AZ deployment, use CloudFront for static assets and cached API responses where safe, add an in-memory cache if read load requires it, and explain to stakeholders that “closer to patrons” for dynamic authoritative data still needs a proper Regional data tier plus caching—not an edge-only database.