An organization hosts a multi-tier web application using an Amazon Aurora MySQL Global Database. The primary DB cluster is in the us-east-1 Region, and a secondary DB cluster is in the us-west-2 Region for disaster recovery. A SysOps Administrator is tasked with designing a failover mechanism so that if the primary Region becomes completely unavailable, application traffic is redirected to us-west-2 with minimal downtime. The database in us-west-2 must be capable of accepting write traffic. Which configuration should the SysOps Administrator implement to achieve this goal?
- AConfigure an Amazon Route 53 failover routing policy with the primary cluster's writer endpoint as primary and the secondary cluster's reader endpoint as secondary. Aurora Global Database will automatically promote the secondary cluster to a writer and update the Route 53 record when the primary Region becomes unhealthy.
- Configure an Amazon Route 53 failover routing policy pointing to the primary cluster's writer endpoint. Create a Route 53 health check that monitors the primary database. Configure an AWS Lambda function triggered by the health check failure to promote the secondary Aurora DB cluster in us-west-2 to a standalone primary cluster.Answer
- CConfigure Route 53 latency-based routing with active-active configuration. Configure both Aurora DB clusters in us-east-1 and us-west-2 as primary writers to allow the application to write to either Region, while Route 53 automatically stops routing to the failed Region.
- DCreate a Route 53 CNAME record pointing to the cross-region read replica in us-west-2. During an outage in the primary Region, Aurora will automatically perform a synchronous failover to the replica, allowing it to begin accepting write traffic without manual intervention.
Answer
To configure failover for an Amazon Aurora MySQL Global Database, you must set up a Route 53 failover routing policy to detect primary region failure, and configure an AWS Lambda function triggered by the Route 53 health check failure to promote the secondary Aurora DB cluster in the disaster recovery region to a standalone primary cluster.
The correct configuration uses a Route 53 health check to detect primary database unavailability and triggers an AWS Lambda function to promote the secondary cluster in the disaster recovery region to a standalone database. Since Aurora Global Database does not automatically promote secondary regional clusters during a disaster, this automation is required to enable write access in the secondary region.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
Amazon Aurora Global Database cross-region failover is an unplanned disaster recovery event that requires manual promotion of the secondary cluster to a standalone primary cluster. This promotion can be automated via AWS Lambda triggered by Route 53 health checks. In contrast, local Multi-AZ failovers within a single Region are fully managed and automatic.
Estimated Time:2m 30s