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SOA-C03 Backup & Recovery Question Bank (28 Questions)

Browse all 28 practice questions covering AWS Backup and Recovery for the SOA-C03 certification exam. Answers are intentionally hidden on this page so you can self-test first before checking results in quiz mode.

Question 1Reliability & Business Continuity
A company frequently creates EBS snapshots for disaster recovery. When they restore a snapshot to a new volume and immediately start a database, the initial read performance is significantly degraded for the first several minutes. Which EBS feature eliminates this initial performance penalty?
AEnable EBS Multi-Attach on the volume to distribute the I/O load.
BEnable EBS Fast Snapshot Restore (FSR) on the snapshot in the target Availability Zone.
CChange the EBS volume type from gp3 to io2 for higher baseline IOPS.
DPre-warm the volume by reading all blocks using `dd` or `fio` after the restore.
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Question 2Reliability and Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator wants to configure AWS Backup to protect all resources (RDS, EBS, DynamoDB, EFS) with a single backup plan. What determines which resources are included?
AResource ARNs must be listed individually in the backup plan
BTag-based assignment — resources with a specific tag are automatically included
CAWS Backup automatically protects all resources
DVPC-level assignment protects all resources within a VPC
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Question 3Reliability and Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator is setting up AWS Backup for cross-region disaster recovery. Which AWS Backup feature copies backups to another region?
AAWS Backup cross-region copy rule in the backup plan
BS3 Cross-Region Replication for backup files
CCloudFormation cross-region stack deployment
DRDS snapshot copy (manual)
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Question 4Reliability and Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator uses AWS Backup and wants to verify that backups can be successfully restored. Which feature validates backup recoverability?
AAWS Backup audit manager with restore testing
BRestore a backup in a sandbox account monthly
CAWS Resilience Hub backup assessment
DBoth A and B
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Question 5Reliability & Business Continuity
A SysOps Administrator needs to ensure that backups stored in an AWS Backup vault cannot be deleted by anyone — including root — for a minimum retention period, to comply with regulatory requirements. Which AWS Backup feature should the administrator configure?
AEnable AWS Backup vault access policy to deny `backup:DeleteRecoveryPoint` for all principals.
BEnable AWS Backup vault lock in compliance mode with a minimum retention period; once locked, the lock cannot be removed and recovery points cannot be deleted before the retention period expires.
CEnable AWS Backup vault lock in governance mode, which prevents accidental deletion but can be overridden by privileged users.
DConfigure an SCP that denies `backup:DeleteRecoveryPoint` across the organization.
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Question 6Reliability & Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator configured AWS Backup to protect production RDS instances and EBS volumes. The compliance team requires that backups in the vault cannot be deleted by anyone — including administrators — for a minimum retention period of 365 days. How should the administrator configure this?
ACreate a vault access policy that denies the `backup:DeleteRecoveryPoint` action for all principals
BEnable AWS Backup vault lock in compliance mode with a minimum retention period of 365 days; once the lock cooling-off period expires, the vault lock becomes immutable
CEnable S3 Object Lock on the underlying S3 bucket where AWS Backup stores recovery points
DConfigure IAM policies that deny all `backup:Delete*` actions and attach them to every IAM role and user in the account
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Question 7Reliability and Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator uses AWS Backup with vault lock. What does vault lock provide?
AEncryption of backup data
BWORM (Write Once Read Many) protection — once set, backups in the vault cannot be deleted before the retention period, even by the root account
CMulti-region backup replication
DAutomated backup testing
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Question 8Select All That ApplyReliability & Business Continuity
A company hosts a critical web application in us-east-1 and needs a disaster recovery strategy with an RTO of less than 1 hour and an RPO of less than 15 minutes. The solution must minimize ongoing costs when not in a disaster scenario. (Select TWO.)
AUse a warm standby strategy with a scaled-down version of the production environment running in us-west-2.
BUse a pilot light strategy with only the database replicated to us-west-2, and AMIs pre-built for the application tier.
CConfigure Aurora Global Database with a secondary cluster in us-west-2 for near-zero RPO on the data tier.
DUse a backup and restore strategy with cross-region S3 replication for backups and pre-written CloudFormation templates.
EDeploy a full multi-site active-active configuration across both regions with Route 53 weighted routing.
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Question 9Reliability & Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator is designing a disaster recovery strategy for an application that requires an RTO of 1 hour and an RPO of 15 minutes. The application uses Amazon RDS PostgreSQL. Which DR strategy meets these requirements at the LOWEST cost?
AUse a Multi-AZ RDS deployment with automated failover
BCreate cross-region read replicas and promote during disaster
CUse AWS DMS for continuous replication to a standby region
DTake automated RDS snapshots every 15 minutes and copy to the DR region
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Question 10Reliability & Business Continuity
A company operates a mission-critical application using an Amazon RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ DB instance in us-east-1. The disaster recovery requirement mandates an RPO of 1 hour and an RTO of 30 minutes with a failover target in us-west-2. Which architecture meets these requirements with the LEAST operational effort?
ACreate a cross-Region read replica in us-west-2 and use a Route 53 health check with failover routing to promote the replica during disaster
BConfigure automated RDS snapshots every hour and use AWS Lambda to copy snapshots to us-west-2; restore during disaster
CSet up AWS DMS for continuous replication from us-east-1 to a standby RDS instance in us-west-2
DUse Amazon Aurora Global Database with a secondary cluster in us-west-2
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Question 11Reliability and Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator must implement a disaster recovery strategy with an RTO of less than 1 hour and RPO of less than 15 minutes for a database. Which DR strategy meets these requirements at the LOWEST cost?
AMulti-site active/active
BWarm standby
CPilot light
DBackup and restore
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Question 12Reliability & Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator needs to restore an RDS PostgreSQL instance to a specific point in time 3 hours ago. The instance has automated backups enabled with a 7-day retention period. What steps should the administrator take?
ARestore the most recent automated snapshot and then apply the transaction logs manually
BUse the RDS point-in-time recovery feature to restore the DB instance to the target timestamp, which creates a new DB instance
CStop the current RDS instance and revert it to its state 3 hours ago using the `RevertDBInstance` API
DRestore from the most recent manual snapshot and replay binary logs from S3
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Question 13Select All That ApplyReliability & Business Continuity
A SysOps Administrator needs to implement backup strategies for a DynamoDB table containing critical transaction data. The business requires the ability to restore the table to any second within the last 35 days, AND the ability to create a full table backup before major application releases. Which combination of DynamoDB backup features meets BOTH requirements? (Select TWO.)
AEnable Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR), which allows continuous backups with restore to any second within the last 35 days.
BCreate on-demand backups before each major release using the `CreateBackup` API or console.
CEnable DynamoDB Streams and replay events to reconstruct the table to a specific point.
DExport the table to S3 using DynamoDB Export to S3 and import it when needed.
EEnable DynamoDB Global Tables, which automatically backs up data across regions.
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Question 14Reliability & Business Continuity
A company uses Amazon FSx for Windows File Server for shared storage across a fleet of Windows instances. The compliance team requires daily backups with a retention period of 90 days and the ability to restore to a specific point in time. Which approach meets these requirements?
AConfigure automatic daily backups on the FSx file system with a 90-day retention period using the FSx console or API.
BUse AWS Backup to create a backup plan that schedules daily FSx backups with a 90-day retention lifecycle rule.
CCreate a Windows scheduled task on one of the EC2 instances that runs `robocopy` to back up the file share to S3 daily.
DEnable Shadow Copies on the FSx volume, which automatically retains 90 days of file versions.
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Question 15Reliability & Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator needs to create automated backups for Amazon EBS volumes attached to production EC2 instances. The backups must be retained for 30 days and older snapshots must be automatically deleted. Which solution meets these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?
ACreate a Lambda function triggered by CloudWatch Events to create snapshots daily and delete snapshots older than 30 days
BUse Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) to create a lifecycle policy with a 30-day retention rule
CUse AWS Backup to create a backup plan with a 30-day retention period
DWrite a script using the AWS CLI that runs as a cron job on an EC2 instance
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Question 16Reliability & Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator is restoring an Amazon DynamoDB table from a point-in-time recovery (PITR) backup. The administrator notices that the restored table does not have the same provisioned capacity settings, auto scaling policies, or tags as the original table. What should the administrator do after the restore?
ANothing — PITR restores all table settings automatically
BManually reconfigure provisioned capacity, auto scaling policies, IAM policies, tags, and global secondary indexes
CUse AWS CloudFormation to redeploy the original table template on top of the restored table
DDelete the restored table and use on-demand backup/restore instead, which preserves all settings
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Question 17Deployment, Provisioning & Automation
A SysOps administrator is using AWS Systems Manager Automation to patch a fleet of EC2 instances. The automation document needs to first create AMI backups of all instances, then apply patches, and finally verify patch compliance. If the patching step fails, the AMI backups should be used to restore the instances. Which Systems Manager Automation feature supports this workflow?
AUse an Automation document with multiple steps and configure `onFailure: step:RestoreFromAMI` on the patching step
BUse a maintenance window with sequential tasks
CCreate separate automation documents for each step and chain them using EventBridge
DUse Step Functions to orchestrate the Systems Manager Run Command calls
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Question 18Reliability & Business Continuity
A company uses Amazon DynamoDB for a financial transactions table. The team needs the ability to restore the table to any point in time within the last 35 days. Which DynamoDB backup feature should the SysOps administrator enable?
ADynamoDB on-demand backup
BDynamoDB point-in-time recovery (PITR)
CAWS Backup with a DynamoDB backup plan
DDynamoDB Streams with a Lambda function writing to S3
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Question 19Reliability and Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator wants to ensure that RDS snapshots are retained for 90 days. The default automated backup retention is capped at 35 days. What is the solution?
ASet automated backup retention to 90 days in the RDS console
BCreate a Lambda function that copies automated snapshots to manual snapshots before they expire
CUse AWS Backup with a 90-day lifecycle retention rule for RDS
DBoth B and C
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Question 20Reliability and Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator wants to implement a backup strategy where EBS snapshots are stored in a different AWS region automatically. Which service provides this?
AEBS snapshot console — manual copy to another region
BAmazon DLM with cross-region copy rules
CAWS Backup with cross-region copy in the backup plan
DBoth B and C
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Question 21Reliability & Business Continuity
A company stores critical data in Amazon EFS across multiple Availability Zones. The disaster recovery plan requires the file system to be replicated to a secondary Region with an RPO of 15 minutes. Which solution meets the requirement with the LEAST operational overhead?
AUse AWS DataSync to schedule transfers from the primary EFS to a secondary EFS in another Region every 15 minutes
BEnable Amazon EFS replication to automatically replicate the file system to a destination Region
CMount the EFS file system on EC2 instances in both Regions using VPC peering
DBack up EFS using AWS Backup and restore to the secondary Region when needed
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Question 22Reliability & Business Continuity
A SysOps Administrator must demonstrate that all backup jobs across 10 AWS accounts conform to a corporate backup policy that requires daily backups with 30-day retention. The auditor requires a centralized compliance report. Which AWS service provides this capability?
AAWS Backup Audit Manager, which allows creating audit frameworks with compliance controls and generates compliance reports across accounts using AWS Organizations.
BAWS Config rules that evaluate backup frequencies and retention policies, aggregated with a Config Aggregator.
CAWS CloudTrail event history filtered for `CreateBackupVault` and `StartBackupJob` API calls.
DAmazon S3 Storage Lens with a custom metric for backup objects.
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Question 23Reliability & Business Continuity
A company needs to implement a disaster recovery strategy for EBS volumes in us-east-1 with a recovery point objective (RPO) of 1 hour in eu-west-1. The solution should be automated and require minimal operational effort. Which approach meets these requirements?
ACreate EBS snapshots every hour using Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) and configure a cross-region copy rule to eu-west-1 in the same DLM policy.
BUse AWS Backup with a backup plan that takes hourly EBS snapshots and a copy rule that replicates them to eu-west-1.
CCreate a Lambda function on an hourly EventBridge schedule that calls `CreateSnapshot` and `CopySnapshot` with the destination region parameter.
DEnable EBS replication to eu-west-1 using EBS Multi-Region replication.
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Question 24Select All That ApplyReliability & Business Continuity
A company's disaster recovery plan classifies workloads into tiers. Tier 1 requires RTO < 5 minutes, Tier 2 requires RTO < 1 hour, and Tier 3 requires RTO < 24 hours. Which DR strategies correctly match these tiers? (Select TWO.)
ATier 1 — Multi-site active/active
BTier 2 — Backup and restore
CTier 2 — Warm standby
DTier 3 — Pilot light
ETier 1 — Pilot light
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Question 25Reliability and Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator must meet an RPO of 5 minutes for an EC2-hosted application. Which backup approach achieves this?
ADaily EBS snapshots
BEBS Snapshots every 5 minutes using Amazon DLM or AWS Backup with 5-minute frequency
CAMI backups every hour
DS3 versioning for the application data
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Question 26Reliability & Business Continuity
A company operates a customer-facing web application that must have an RTO of 1 hour and an RPO of 15 minutes. The production environment runs in us-east-1. The DR budget is limited. Which DR strategy BEST meets these requirements?
ABackup and restore: take automated snapshots every 15 minutes and restore in us-west-2 during disaster
BPilot light: keep core infrastructure (RDS replica, minimal compute) running in us-west-2 and scale up during failover
CWarm standby: maintain a scaled-down but fully functional copy of the production environment in us-west-2
DMulti-site active/active: run full production capacity in both regions simultaneously
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Question 27Reliability & Business Continuity
A company requires an RTO of 15 minutes and an RPO of 1 minute for their primary relational database. The database is currently a 2 TB Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL Multi-AZ instance in us-east-1. Which architecture satisfies both the RTO and RPO requirements?
AEnable automated backups with a 5-minute backup window and deploy a cross-Region read replica in us-west-2
BMigrate to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL with Aurora Global Database; configure a secondary Region in us-west-2
CUse AWS DMS with change data capture for continuous replication to an RDS instance in us-west-2
DUse RDS automated snapshots every minute and copy them to us-west-2
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Question 28Reliability and Business Continuity
A SysOps administrator is designing for an RTO of 4 hours and RPO of 24 hours for a non-critical workload. Which DR strategy is MOST cost-effective?
AMulti-site active/active
BWarm standby
CBackup and restore
DPilot light
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Key Backup & Recovery Concepts for SOA-C03

backupaws backupsnapshotrestorevaultbackup planrportodisaster recovery

SOA-C03 Backup & Recovery Exam Tips

AWS Backup and Recovery questions in SOA-C03 are typically scenario-based. Focus on operations, observability, incident response, and automated remediation. Priority concepts: backup, aws backup, snapshot, restore, vault, backup plan.

What SOA-C03 Expects

Anchor your answer in prioritize operational visibility and repeatable runbook-ready automation.
Backup & Recovery scenarios for SOA-C03 are frequently mapped to Domain 2 (22%), so read the objective carefully before picking controls or architecture.
Expect multi-topic scenarios where Backup & Recovery interacts with IAM, networking, storage, or observability patterns rather than appearing as an isolated question.
When two options are both technically valid, prefer the choice that best aligns with the exam's operational scope (Associate) and vendor best practices.

High-Value Backup & Recovery Concepts

Know the core Backup & Recovery building blocks cold: backup, aws backup, snapshot, restore.
Review the edge-case features and limits for vault, backup plan; these details are commonly used to differentiate answer choices.
Practice service-integration reasoning: how Backup & Recovery pairs with RDS, S3, EBS, Reliability in real deployment patterns.
For SOA-C03, explain why the chosen Backup & Recovery design meets reliability, security, and cost expectations better than the alternatives.

Common SOA-C03 Traps

Watch for answers that deploy quickly but are hard to monitor or recover.
Questions in Reliability and Business Continuity often include distractors that look correct for Backup & Recovery but violate least-privilege, durability, or availability requirements.
Avoid picking options purely by feature name; validate data path, failure handling, and governance impact before answering.
If the prompt hints at automation or repeatability, eliminate manual-only operational answers first.

Fast Review Checklist

Can you compare at least two Backup & Recovery implementation paths and justify which one best fits the scenario?
Can you map the chosen answer back to Reliability and Business Continuity (22%) outcomes for SOA-C03?
Can you explain security and access boundaries for Backup & Recovery without relying on default-open assumptions?
Can you describe how Backup & Recovery integrates with RDS and S3 during failure, scaling, and monitoring events?

Exam Domains Covering Backup & Recovery

Domain 2Reliability and Business Continuity22%

Related Resources

🎯 Free SOA-C03 Mock Exam RDS Questions S3 Questions EBS Questions Reliability Questions

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