Answer: Automated backups

## Explanation **Correct Answer: C. Automated backups** Amazon RDS automated backups provide point-in-time recovery (PITR) capabilities, which is exactly what the requirement describes. Here's why: ### Key Requirements Analysis: 1. **Restore to any point within the last 30 days** - RDS automated backups retain transaction logs for the retention period (up to 35 days) 2. **Restore to 5 minutes before any change** - Point-in-time recovery allows restoration to any second within the retention period 3. **Recover from accidental data modification** - This is a classic use case for PITR ### How Automated Backups Work: - **Daily snapshots** are taken during the backup window - **Transaction logs** are saved every 5 minutes - **Retention period** can be configured from 1 to 35 days - **Point-in-time recovery** allows restoration to any specific second within the retention period ### Why Other Options Are Incorrect: **A. Read replicas** - These are for scaling read operations, not for point-in-time recovery. They replicate data in near real-time but don't provide historical recovery capabilities. **B. Manual snapshots** - These are user-initiated snapshots that persist until manually deleted. While they can be used for recovery, they don't provide the granular 5-minute recovery point objective (RPO) or automatic retention for 30 days. **D. Multi-AZ deployments** - These provide high availability and automatic failover in case of AZ failure, but they don't provide point-in-time recovery capabilities. Multi-AZ maintains a synchronous standby replica in another AZ for failover purposes. ### Best Practice Implementation: To meet this requirement, the solutions architect should: 1. Enable automated backups with a retention period of at least 30 days 2. Ensure the backup window is configured appropriately 3. Test the point-in-time recovery process regularly 4. Consider enabling deletion protection to prevent accidental deletion of the database This solution provides the required recovery point objective (RPO) of 5 minutes and retention period of 30 days for accidental data modifications.

Author: LeetQuiz Editorial Team