A product team runs MySQL on Amazon RDS and wants to restore the database to how it looked 3 hours ago after a faulty migration. The backup feature must be native to RDS and need no extra setup. Which option meets this?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A
RDS automated backups take daily snapshots and capture transaction logs continuously, so the database can be restored to any point within the backup retention period, up to 35 days. It is enabled by setting a retention period and needs no extra setup. Manual snapshots only restore to the moment they were taken, so a 3-hour target might fall between snapshots. A versioned S3 dump is not a native RDS restore path, and Snowball is an offline data transfer device, not a backup feature.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Manual snapshots capture the database at the time they are taken. With weekly snapshots, a restore to three hours ago would not be possible, so this misses the requirement.
- C. A mysqldump in S3 can be restored, but it is a manual export you must schedule yourself. It is not a native point-in-time restore inside RDS.
- D. Snowball is a physical device for moving large amounts of data into or out of AWS. It is not a database backup feature and cannot roll back an RDS instance.