Disaster recovery (DR) is a critical part of Domain 2: Design Resilient Architectures on the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam. You’ll often see scenario-based questions where the right answer depends on balancing cost, recovery objectives, and business continuity requirements.
Among the different DR patterns, Backup & Restore, Pilot Light, Warm Standby, and Multi-Site, the Pilot Light strategy frequently appears because it provides a balance between low cost and moderate recovery time.
Let’s walk through a sample scenario, break down why Pilot Light is the correct choice, and summarize the key takeaways with a cheat sheet, exam tips, and highlights.
Scenario
A logistics company operates a shipment tracking system on-premises. The business wants a disaster recovery solution in AWS that:
Keeps costs low while the system is healthy
Allows failover to AWS within tens of minutes if their data center fails
Does not require continuous full-scale resources running in AWS
Correct Solution – Pilot Light Strategy
The company provisions the core infrastructure in AWS (Amazon EC2 AMIs, pre-configured networking, and storage).
These EC2 instances remain powered off until a disaster occurs. If the on-premises environment goes down, the instances are started, scaled out as needed, and traffic is redirected to AWS.
This approach minimizes ongoing cost while achieving a reasonable RTO (Recovery Time Objective), making it a textbook example of the Pilot Light DR strategy.
Cheat Sheet: AWS DR Strategies
DR Strategy | Cost | Recovery Time (RTO) | Key Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
Backup & Restore | 💲 Low | ⏳ Hours+ | Data stored in S3. Rebuild environment after disaster. |
Pilot Light | 💲💲 Medium | ⏳ Tens of Minutes | Core infra pre-provisioned, powered off until failover. |
Warm Standby | 💲💲💲 Higher | ⏳ Minutes | Smaller-scale version always running in AWS. |
Multi-Site / Hot-Hot | 💲💲💲💲 High | ⚡ Near Zero | Active-active across multiple Regions. Highest cost, fastest recovery. |
Exam Tips
Exam Tip | Key Point | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
Pilot Light = Off Until Needed | Only essential infra pre-built, powered on during failover | Balances cost with moderate RTO |
Backup & Restore = Cheapest, Slowest | Everything must be rebuilt from backups | Expect hours of downtime |
Warm Standby vs Pilot Light | Warm Standby = scaled-down live infra; Pilot Light = powered off | Common exam trap |
Multi-Site = Zero Downtime | Active-active across Regions | Highest availability, highest cost |
<1 Hour Recovery + Cost-Conscious = Pilot Light | Exam clue phrase | Helps eliminate wrong answers fast |
Exam Highlights
Domain 2 (Design Resilient Architectures) is where DR strategy questions appear.
Always distinguish RTO (time to recover) from RPO (data loss tolerance).
Pilot Light often shows up as the middle ground:
Faster than Backup & Restore
Cheaper than Warm Standby or Multi-Site
Expect scenario-driven questions like:
“A company wants the lowest ongoing AWS cost but still needs recovery within tens of minutes. Which strategy should they choose?”
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