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AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate: Streamlined Backup Management for EC2 and RDS with AWS Backup

Discover how to efficiently implement a comprehensive backup strategy for your Amazon EC2 instances and Amazon RDS databases, meeting diverse retention requirements with minimal administrative effort using AWS Backup.

Table of Contents

Question

A SysOps administrator needs to implement a backup strategy for Amazon EC2 resources and Amazon RDS resources. The backup strategy must meet the following retention requirements:

  • Daily backups: must be kept for 6 days
  • Weekly backups: must be kept for 4 weeks:
  • Monthly backups: must be kept for 11 months
  • Yearly backups: must be kept for 7 years

Which backup strategy will meet these requirements with the LEAST administrative effort?

A. Use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to create an Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) snapshot policy. Create tags on each resource that needs to be backed up. Create multiple schedules according to the requirements within the policy. Set the appropriate frequency and retention period.
B. Use AWS Backup to create a new backup plan for each retention requirement with a backup frequency of daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. Set the retention period to match the requirement. Create tags on each resource that needs to be backed up. Set up resource assignment by using the tags.
C. Create an AWS Lambda function. Program the Lambda function to use native tooling to take backups of file systems in Amazon EC2 and to make copies of databases in Amazon RDS. Create an Amazon EventBridge rule to invoke the Lambda function.
D. Use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to create an Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) snapshot policy. Create tags on each resource that needs to be backed up. Set up resource assignment by using the tags. Create multiple schedules according to the requirements within the policy. Set the appropriate frequency and retention period. In Amazon RDS, activate automated backups on the required DB instances.

Answer

B. Use AWS Backup to create a new backup plan for each retention requirement with a backup frequency of daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. Set the retention period to match the requirement. Create tags on each resource that needs to be backed up. Set up resource assignment by using the tags.

Explanation

B. Use AWS Backup to create a new backup plan for each retention requirement with a backup frequency of daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. Set the retention period to match the requirement. Create tags on each resource that needs to be backed up. Set up resource assignment by using the tags.

AWS Backup is a fully managed service that simplifies the creation and management of backup plans for AWS resources, including Amazon EC2 instances and Amazon RDS databases. By leveraging AWS Backup, the SysOps administrator can meet the specified retention requirements with minimal administrative effort.

Here’s how to implement this solution:

  1. Create four separate backup plans in AWS Backup:
    • Daily backup plan: Set the backup frequency to daily and the retention period to 6 days.
    • Weekly backup plan: Set the backup frequency to weekly and the retention period to 4 weeks.
    • Monthly backup plan: Set the backup frequency to monthly and the retention period to 11 months.
    • Yearly backup plan: Set the backup frequency to yearly and the retention period to 7 years.
  2. Tag the EC2 instances and RDS databases that need to be backed up with appropriate tags (e.g., “Backup=true”).
  3. In each backup plan, configure resource assignment using the tags you created. AWS Backup will automatically identify and back up the tagged resources based on the specified backup frequency and retention period.

By using AWS Backup, the SysOps administrator can centrally manage and automate the backup process for both EC2 instances and RDS databases, ensuring that the retention requirements are met without the need for manual intervention or custom scripting.

Other options are less efficient or require additional effort:

A. Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager is specific to Amazon EBS snapshots and does not natively support RDS backups.
C. Creating a custom AWS Lambda function and scheduling it with Amazon EventBridge requires more development effort and ongoing maintenance compared to using a fully managed service like AWS Backup.
D. While this approach combines Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager for EBS snapshots and automated backups for RDS, it still requires separate configurations for EC2 and RDS, adding administrative overhead.

Amazon AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate certification exam practice question and answer (Q&A) dump with detail explanation and reference available free, helpful to pass the Amazon AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate exam and earn Amazon AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate certification.