SOA-C02 Question #567: Real Exam Question with Answer & Explanation

Question

A SysOps administrator needs to ensure that an Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL DB instance has available backups. The DB instance has automated backups turned on with a backup retention period of 7 days. However, no automated backups for the DB instance have been created in the past month. What could be the cause of the lack of automated backups?

Options

• AThe Amazon S3 bucket that stores the backups is full.
• BThe DB instance is in the STORAGE_FULL state.
• CThe DB instance is not configured for Multi-AZ.
• DThe backup retention period must be 30 days.

Explanation

When an RDS DB instance enters the STORAGE_FULL state, AWS suspends all automated backups because the instance cannot function normally - this is a documented behavior where critical operations are halted until storage is resolved.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• A - RDS automated backups are stored in AWS-managed S3 storage, not a customer-owned S3 bucket, so a "full bucket" scenario doesn't apply.
• C - Multi-AZ is a high-availability feature; automated backups work on both Single-AZ and Multi-AZ deployments.
• D - A 7-day retention period is perfectly valid (range is 1–35 days); 30 days is not a requirement.

Memory tip: Think of STORAGE_FULL as a "frozen" state - when an RDS instance has no room left, AWS freezes automated operations (including backups) to prevent further writes from making things worse. If backups mysteriously stop, always check storage utilization first.

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