Disaster Recovery for Aurora MySQL Database: Suitable Methods

Disaster Recovery for Aurora MySQL Database

Question

The team owns an Aurora MySQL 5.7 database in the us-east-1 region.

Your team lead asks you to design an approach for disaster recovery.

The requirement is that whenever there is a regional outage in the us-east-1, the database should failover to the us-west-1 region automatically.

Which of the following methods is the most suitable?

Answers

Explanations

Click on the arrows to vote for the correct answer

A. B. C. D.

Correct Answer: B.

Option A is incorrect because there will be an outage when the database is deleted.

To configure a global database, there is no need to recreate the database.

Option B is CORRECT because users can add another region to configure an Aurora global database.

The global database can be quickly recovered from a regional disaster through a managed planned or unplanned failover.

Option C is incorrect because for Multi-AZ, Aurora stores data across multiple Availability Zones in a single AWS Region.

Users cannot select another region.

Option D is incorrect because this option does not explain how to copy snapshots and how to restore the DB when there is an outage.

Manual processes need to be involved.

This option is not the most applicable.

References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/aurora-global-database-disaster-recovery.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/aurora-global-database-getting-started.html

Option A is not the most suitable method for disaster recovery, as it involves deleting the existing database and recreating a new Aurora global database that spans two AWS regions. This approach is not recommended for disaster recovery, as it will cause a downtime for the application that depends on the database. Moreover, recreating a new database from the snapshot can result in data loss if the snapshot is not up to date.

Option B is a suitable method for disaster recovery. In this approach, the user can select the existing Aurora database in the AWS Aurora console and add a secondary region (in this case, us-west-1) to create an Aurora global database. An Aurora global database is a single database that spans multiple AWS regions, providing automatic cross-region disaster recovery. When the primary region (us-east-1) becomes unavailable, the global database will automatically failover to the secondary region (us-west-1), and the application can continue to use the database with minimal disruption.

Option C is another suitable method for disaster recovery. In this approach, the user can select the existing Aurora database in the AWS Aurora console and enable Multi-AZ. Multi-AZ deployment maintains a synchronous standby replica of the primary database in a different Availability Zone within the same region. By selecting us-west-1 as the target region for Multi-AZ, the standby replica will be created in us-west-1. In the event of a regional outage in us-east-1, the standby replica in us-west-1 will be promoted to the primary database automatically, ensuring high availability and minimal downtime.

Option D is not the most suitable method for disaster recovery, as it involves only backing up the Aurora DB cluster every day and copying the snapshots to the us-west-1 region. This approach does not provide automatic failover and requires manual intervention to restore the database in the event of a regional outage.

In summary, options B and C are the most suitable methods for disaster recovery. Option B involves creating an Aurora global database spanning two AWS regions, while option C involves enabling Multi-AZ with a standby replica in a different region. Both approaches provide automatic cross-region failover and high availability, minimizing downtime for the application.