Which solution will meet these requirements?
Take snapshots of Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes of the EC2 instances and database every 2 hours to meet the RPO.
Configure a snapshot lifecycle policy to take Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) snapshots. Enable automated backups in Amazon RDS to meet the RPO.
Retain the latest Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) of the web and application tiers. Enable automated backups in Amazon RDS and use point-in-time recovery to meet the RPO.
Take snapshots of Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes of the EC2 instances every 2 hours. Enable automated backups in Amazon RDS and use point-in-time recovery to meet the RPO.
Explanations:
EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group are stateless and do not require EBS snapshots, as they can be recreated from an AMI. This approach does not optimize resource utilization and adds unnecessary complexity. The RDS backup is also not explicitly addressed to meet the 2-hour RPO.
While this option sets an EBS snapshot lifecycle policy, taking EBS snapshots of EC2 instances is unnecessary for stateless applications in an Auto Scaling group. However, automated RDS backups are correctly included, but the additional EBS snapshots do not optimize scalability or resources.
Retaining the latest AMI for the stateless application tier enables easy scaling without needing EBS snapshots, maximizing resource efficiency. Enabling automated backups in Amazon RDS and using point-in-time recovery provides the necessary 2-hour RPO for the database.
Although automated RDS backups are correctly configured for the 2-hour RPO, taking EBS snapshots every 2 hours is unnecessary for stateless EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. This option does not optimize resource utilization for the stateless application tier.
I reckon the answer is:
Retain the latest Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) of the web and application tiers. Enable automated backups in Amazon RDS and use point-in-time recovery to meet the RPO.