An Aurora PostgreSQL cluster serves 500 application servers. The team needs connection pooling, IAM-based database credentials instead of embedded passwords, faster recovery when the writer fails, and a cache for repeated read queries. Which combination covers all four?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A
RDS Proxy pools and multiplexes connections, can authenticate clients with IAM, and keeps client sessions alive while the writer is replaced, which shortens the visible outage. ElastiCache removes repeated reads from the database entirely. Together with Aurora's writer replacement, the four requirements are met without changing the storage engine.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. PgBouncer is self-managed, needs its own highly available deployment, and does not shorten writer failover.
- C. Serverless v2 changes capacity, DynamoDB is not a query cache for SQL results, and health checks only redirect traffic after failure.
- D. Application pooling still breaks on failover, Secrets Manager removes stored passwords but does not pool connections, and readers do not serve writes.
Exam tip. RDS Proxy is the only managed option that combines pooling, IAM auth and failover masking.