Table of Contents
Question
A company wants to use the AWS Cloud to improve its on-premises disaster recovery (DR) configuration. The company’s core production business application uses Microsoft SQL Server Standard, which runs on a virtual machine (VM). The application has a recovery point objective (RPO) of 30 seconds or fewer and a recovery time objective (RTO) of 60 minutes. The DR solution needs to minimize costs wherever possible. Which solution will meet these requirements?
A. Configure a multi-site active/active setup between the on-premises server and AWS by using Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise with Always On availability groups.
B. Configure a warm standby Amazon RDS for SQL Server database on AWS. Configure AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) to use change data capture (CDC). Most Voted
C. Use AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery configured to replicate disk changes to AWS as a pilot light.
D. Use third-party backup software to capture backups every night. Store a secondary set of backups in Amazon S3.
Answer
B. Configure a warm standby Amazon RDS for SQL Server database on AWS. Configure AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) to use change data capture (CDC).
Explanation
The correct answer is option B. Configure a warm standby Amazon RDS for SQL Server database on AWS. Configure AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) to use change data capture (CDC).
A warm standby database is a secondary database that is kept up to date with the primary database by applying changes as they occur. A warm standby database can be used for disaster recovery, as it can be quickly activated in case of a failure of the primary database. A warm standby database can also be used for read-only queries, such as reporting or analytics, to offload some of the workload from the primary database.
Amazon RDS for SQL Server is a managed service that provides a fully compatible SQL Server database engine on AWS. Amazon RDS for SQL Server handles common database administration tasks such as backups, patching, scaling, and high availability. Amazon RDS for SQL Server supports multiple editions of SQL Server, including Standard, Enterprise, and Express.
AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) is a service that helps migrate databases to AWS quickly and securely. AWS DMS supports heterogeneous migrations between different database platforms, such as Oracle to Amazon Aurora, or homogeneous migrations between the same database platform, such as SQL Server to SQL Server. AWS DMS also supports continuous data replication with minimal downtime, using change data capture (CDC) technology. CDC captures changes made to the source database and applies them to the target database in near real time.
By using Amazon RDS for SQL Server and AWS DMS with CDC, the company can achieve its disaster recovery requirements for its core production business application. The company can configure a warm standby Amazon RDS for SQL Server database on AWS as the target for AWS DMS. AWS DMS will use CDC to replicate changes from the on-premises SQL Server Standard VM to the Amazon RDS for SQL Server database. This will ensure that the RPO is 30 seconds or fewer, as any changes made to the source database will be captured and applied to the target database within that time frame. The company can also configure a failover mechanism to switch over to the Amazon RDS for SQL Server database in case of a disaster. This will ensure that the RTO is 60 minutes or less, as the company can quickly activate the warm standby database and resume its operations. The company can also use the Amazon RDS for SQL Server database for read-only queries, such as reporting or analytics, to reduce the load on the on-premises SQL Server Standard VM.
The other options are not suitable for the company’s disaster recovery requirements:
- Option A: Configure a multi-site active/active setup between the on-premises server and AWS by using Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise with Always On availability groups. This option would provide high availability and disaster recovery for the company’s core production business application, but it would not minimize costs wherever possible. Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise is more expensive than Microsoft SQL Server Standard, and it would require additional licensing fees to run on both on-premises and AWS. Also, Always On availability groups require a Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC), which adds more complexity and overhead to the setup.
- Option C: Use AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery configured to replicate disk changes to AWS as a pilot light. This option would use AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (AWS EDR) to replicate disk changes from the on-premises SQL Server Standard VM to an Amazon EC2 instance running SQL Server Standard on AWS. AWS EDR is a service that helps automate disaster recovery by replicating disk changes from on-premises servers to AWS using block-level replication. A pilot light is a minimal version of an application that runs on AWS and can be quickly scaled up in case of a disaster. However, this option would not meet the RPO of 30 seconds or fewer, as AWS EDR replicates disk changes asynchronously and does not guarantee consistency between the source and target servers. Also, this option would not meet the RTO of 60 minutes or less, as it would require additional steps to scale up the pilot light and restore the application state on AWS.
- Option D: Use third-party backup software to capture backups every night. Store a secondary set of backups in Amazon S3. This option would use third-party backup software to capture backups of the on-premises SQL Server Standard VM every night and store them in Amazon S3. Amazon S3 is a highly durable and scalable object storage service that can store any amount of data in any format. However, this option would not meet the RPO of 30 seconds or fewer, as it would only capture backups once a day and miss any changes made during the day. Also, this option would not meet the RTO of 60 minutes or less, as it would require additional time to restore the backups from Amazon S3 and recover the application on AWS.
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