A county property database needs automated failover across Availability Zones; multi-Region DR is optional for cost reasons. Which recommendation fits?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Multi-AZ is the building’s sprinkler and backup generator on the same campus. Multi-Region is a second courthouse in another city—you buy it when the business pays for that RTO. Don’t skip Multi-AZ, and don’t force three-Region active-active when they only asked for AZ resilience.
Full Explanation
A county property database that needs automated failover across Availability Zones, with multi-Region DR optional for cost reasons, should use a Multi-AZ database deployment. Multi-AZ provides synchronous standby failover within the Region for infrastructure failures without forcing an active-active multi-Region write topology the business waived. Multi-Region replication remains a separate cost and RTO decision layered on later if leadership expands objectives.
Deploying a single-AZ RDS instance and relying on manual snapshot restore fails automated cross-AZ failover. Mandating active-active writes in three Regions despite a waived multi-Region RTO overspends against stated requirements. Disabling automated backups because Multi-AZ “already copies every logical change to another Region” confuses Multi-AZ (same Region) with cross-Region DR and removes point-in-time recovery needed for logical errors.
Exam caveat: Multi-AZ ≠ multi-Region; Multi-AZ addresses AZ failure inside one Region, while cross-Region replicas or DR patterns address Regional events and are costed separately. Operational check: enable Multi-AZ on the property database, test failover, confirm automated backups remain enabled, and record that multi-Region remains out of scope until budgeted.