
This article demonstrates how to perform a cross-Region failover for Amazon RDS for SQL Server using Route 53 and S3, promoting read replicas to active instances and redirecting traffic during disaster recovery events.


<div><p>This article demonstrates how to perform cross-Region failover for RDS SQL Server using disaster recovery blueprint with Route 53 and S3.</p><ul><li>Promote RDS SQL Server read replica to standalone instance in secondary Region</li><li>Verify replica lag is acceptable before initiating failover to prevent data loss</li><li>Conduct smoke tests to validate application functionality in secondary Region</li><li>Upload disaster recovery file to S3 to trigger Route 53 health check failure</li><li>Route 53 automatically fails over internet traffic to secondary Region</li><li>Enable multi-AZ on promoted instance for in-Region high availability</li><li>Recreate cross-Region read replica when primary Region recovers</li><li>Application uses consistent Route 53 CNAME records; no configuration changes needed</li></ul><p>This solution provides automated failover between AWS Regions using Route 53 health checks and S3 file uploads, minimizing application downtime during disasters.</p></div>


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