A company is currently hosting a database in Amazon Redshift. Due to the new requirements in data that needs to be stored in the table, the following changes would occur on one or more of the tables
Changes to existing columns
Uploading of completely new data to the tables
It needs to be ensured that the Redshift database can be restored to its original state, in case there are any issues with the change process. Which of the following can help ensure this in the most efficient manner?

Answer options:

A.Create a manual snapshot of the database
B.Create a copy of the last automated snapshot
C.Use the UNLOAD command to unload all the data to S3
D.Stream all the data to AWS Kinesis as a backup

Answer – A
Snapshots are point-in-time backups of a cluster. There are two types of snapshots: automated and manual. Amazon Redshift stores these snapshots internally in Amazon S3 by using an encrypted Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection. If you need to restore from a snapshot, Amazon Redshift creates a new cluster and imports data from the snapshot that you specify.
It’s better to take a manual snapshot which would contain the latest data. This should be done just before the change process
Option B is partially correct, but the automated snapshot may not be the most recent copy of your data
Option C is incorrect since this would be a very inefficient way to manage the backup and restore operation
Option D is incorrect since AWS Kinesis should not be used as a data store
For more information on working with snapshots, please refer to the below URL
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/redshift/latest/mgmt/working-with-snapshots.html