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SAA-015
For a DynamoDB table, you want to be able to restore to any point in time as protection against accidental updates or deletes. Which feature is the most appropriate?
Choices
Explanation and answer
Read the explanation and correct answer (spoiler — try answering first)
Correct answer: A. Point-in-time recovery
Explanation
Enabling DynamoDB Point-in-time recovery allows you to restore a table to a specific point in the past.
Per-choice explanations
A. Point-in-time recovery
Correct. It is used to recover from accidental operations.
B. Set Provisioned Capacity to its maximum value
Incorrect. Capacity settings are not a recovery feature.
C. DynamoDB Accelerator
Incorrect. DAX is a read cache, not a restoration feature.
D. Only enable DynamoDB Streams
Incorrect. Streams capture change events but cannot perform point-in-time restoration on their own.
Practical Use
DynamoDB Point-in-time Recovery (PITR) can restore a table to any second-level point in time within the past 35 days. There is no need to take backups explicitly. Once PITR is enabled per table, the service continuously retains the transaction log. Restoration writes to a new table and does not modify the original. It directly addresses requirements such as "an application bug overwrote data" or "roll back to the state at a specific time" without writing operational jobs. Alternatives include DynamoDB on-demand backups (snapshots taken at chosen points) and AWS Backup for cross-region and cross-account backups. On-demand backups can only restore to the moment of the snapshot, so for fine-grained restoration like "that exact moment 30 days ago," PITR is required. PITR incurs additional charges based on the write capacity while it is enabled, but the cost is small compared to the effort of building a custom log collection and replay mechanism. On SAA-C03, when keywords such as "restore to any past point in time," "second-level restoration," or "recover from accidental updates or deletes" appear, DynamoDB PITR is the correct answer. Distractors include "on-demand backups alone are sufficient," "Streams can restore," or "restore from a Global Tables replica." Streams deliver change events, and Global Tables provide multi-region replication; neither is a point-in-time restoration feature.