SAA-C03 Design High-Performing Architectures Practice Test 15 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A telemetry pipeline uses RDS MySQL and receives many read-only reporting queries that slow down the primary database. What should the architect add?

Accepted Answer

RDS read replica and route reporting queries to it. RDS Read Replicas are designed specifically to offload read-heavy workloads from the primary database. By creating a read replica and routing the reporting queries to it, the primary database is freed from processing these read-only queries, reducing contention and improving overall performance. This is the most cost-effective and architecturally appropriate solution for read scaling in RDS MySQL.

Answer

Multi-AZ standby and route reads to the standby

Answer

S3 lifecycle policy

Answer

A larger NAT gateway

Question 2

A latency-sensitive video platform uploads large files to S3 from users around the world. Which two features can improve upload performance?

Accepted Answer

S3 Transfer Acceleration. S3 Transfer Acceleration (B) uses AWS edge locations to route uploads over optimized network paths, reducing latency and packet loss for global users. S3 multipart upload (C) allows large files to be uploaded in parallel parts, improving throughput and enabling retries of individual parts without restarting the entire upload.

Answer

S3 Object Lock

Answer

S3 Inventory

Question 3

A Lambda-based retail API has unpredictable traffic spikes and users see latency caused by cold starts. The function must respond consistently during expected campaign windows. What should be configured?

Accepted Answer

Provisioned concurrency during campaign windows. Provisioned concurrency initializes a specified number of execution environments in advance, eliminating cold starts during campaign windows. This ensures consistent latency even under unpredictable traffic spikes, as the function is always warm and ready to handle requests immediately.

Answer

A larger deployment package

Answer

Reserved concurrency only

Answer

CloudTrail data events

Question 4

A document portal requires consistent high IOPS for a transactional database on EC2. Which EBS volume type is most suitable?

Accepted Answer

Provisioned IOPS SSD such as io2. Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2) is the correct choice because it delivers consistent, high IOPS performance required for transactional databases running on EC2. io2 volumes offer a 99.999% durability and can sustain up to 256,000 IOPS per volume, making them ideal for latency-sensitive workloads like OLTP databases.

Answer

sc1 Cold HDD

Answer

Instance store only

Answer

st1 Throughput Optimized HDD

Question 5

A analytics dashboard uses an Application Load Balancer in one Region. Global users need lower network latency to the application without caching dynamic responses. What should be considered?

Accepted Answer

AWS Global Accelerator. AWS Global Accelerator uses the AWS global network and Anycast IPs to route traffic to the optimal Regional endpoint, reducing latency for global users without caching dynamic responses. It does not cache content, so dynamic data is always fetched from the origin, meeting the requirement of no caching while improving network performance via the AWS backbone.

Answer

S3 Cross-Region Replication

Answer

AWS Backup cross-Region copy

Answer

CloudFront only with long TTLs

Question 6

A mobile game backend uses Amazon Aurora. The workload has many short-lived database connections from Lambda functions, causing connection storms. What should be added?

Accepted Answer

RDS Proxy. RDS Proxy is the correct solution because it sits between Lambda functions and the Aurora database, pooling and reusing database connections. This prevents connection storms by reducing the overhead of establishing new connections for each short-lived Lambda invocation, and it also helps manage IAM authentication for Lambda functions without storing database credentials.

Answer

An internet gateway

Answer

S3 Select

Answer

A larger Route 53 hosted zone

Question 7

A travel booking site uses EC2 instances behind an ALB. CPU is consistently high during peak traffic, and request latency rises. What should be configured?

Accepted Answer

Auto Scaling policy based on an appropriate CloudWatch metric. An Auto Scaling policy based on a CloudWatch metric like CPUUtilization or request latency directly addresses the root cause: rising CPU and latency under peak traffic. By automatically adding EC2 instances when the metric breaches a threshold, the ALB can distribute load across more resources, reducing CPU per instance and improving response times. This is the standard AWS solution for dynamic scaling to maintain performance.

Answer

A VPC endpoint for CloudWatch only

Answer

S3 Object Lock

Answer

Disable health checks

Question 8

A media archive needs low-latency full-text search across product descriptions and filtered attributes. Which managed service is most suitable?

Accepted Answer

Amazon OpenSearch Service. Amazon OpenSearch Service is the correct choice because it provides a managed, scalable solution for full-text search and real-time analytics on large volumes of data. It supports low-latency queries across product descriptions and filtered attributes through its inverted index and query DSL, making it ideal for media archive search use cases.

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon EFS

Answer

Amazon SQS

Question 9

A high-volume telemetry pipeline writes streaming click events that must be processed by multiple independent consumers. Which service is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Kinesis Data Streams. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is the most appropriate service because it is designed for real-time streaming data ingestion and processing. It can capture and store terabytes of data per hour from hundreds of thousands of sources, such as click events, and allows multiple independent consumers to read and process the same stream concurrently using the Kinesis Client Library (KCL) or enhanced fan-out with dedicated throughput.

Answer

AWS DataSync

Answer

Amazon EBS

Answer

Amazon Route 53

Question 10

A global video platform serves mostly static images and JavaScript files from an S3 origin. Users in distant countries report slow load times. What should improve performance most? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudFront distribution with the S3 bucket as origin. Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) that caches static content (images, JavaScript files) at edge locations worldwide. By distributing content closer to users, it reduces latency and improves load times for distant countries without requiring any custom operational scripts or changes to the S3 bucket.

Answer

A larger S3 bucket

Answer

RDS read replicas

Answer

An EC2 Auto Scaling group in one Region

Question 11

A DynamoDB table for a retail API has a partition key based only on the current date. Write throttling occurs during business hours. What is the best design change? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

Use a higher-cardinality partition key that distributes writes across partitions. Using only the current date as a partition key creates a 'hot partition' because all writes for the day target a single partition, exceeding its 1,000 WCU limit. A higher-cardinality partition key (e.g., combining date with user ID or order ID) distributes writes evenly across partitions, eliminating throttling without custom scripts.

Answer

Create a global secondary index with the same date key

Answer

Reduce the table's write capacity

Answer

Move the table to S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval

Question 12

A read-heavy document portal repeatedly queries the same product catalogue data from DynamoDB with millisecond latency requirements. Which service can reduce read latency and table load? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX). DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) is an in-memory cache for DynamoDB that delivers microsecond read latency, reducing the number of read requests hitting the underlying table. It requires no custom scripts—just a DAX cluster endpoint—and automatically caches frequently accessed items, making it ideal for a read-heavy document portal with millisecond latency requirements.

Answer

Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose

Answer

S3 Transfer Acceleration

Answer

AWS Glue Data Catalog

Question 13

A media archive requires consistent high IOPS for a transactional database on EC2. Which EBS volume type is most suitable? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

Provisioned IOPS SSD such as io2. A Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2) volume is the correct choice because it delivers consistent, high IOPS required for transactional databases, with a 99.999% durability guarantee and the ability to provision IOPS independently of storage capacity. This avoids custom operational scripts by providing predictable performance natively through the EBS volume type.

Answer

st1 Throughput Optimized HDD

Answer

Instance store only

Answer

sc1 Cold HDD

Question 14

A telemetry pipeline uses an Application Load Balancer in one Region. Global users need lower network latency to the application without caching dynamic responses. What should be considered? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

AWS Global Accelerator. AWS Global Accelerator uses the AWS global network to route traffic from global users to the Application Load Balancer, reducing latency and jitter by leveraging Anycast IP addresses and edge locations. It does not cache responses, making it ideal for dynamic content where low latency is required without custom operational scripts.

Answer

S3 Cross-Region Replication

Answer

CloudFront only with long TTLs

Answer

AWS Backup cross-Region copy

Question 15

A video platform uses Amazon Aurora. The workload has many short-lived database connections from Lambda functions, causing connection storms. What should be added? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

RDS Proxy. RDS Proxy is the correct choice because it sits between Lambda functions and the Aurora database, pooling and reusing database connections. This prevents connection storms by reducing the overhead of establishing new connections for each short-lived Lambda invocation, without requiring custom scripts or application changes.

Answer

S3 Select

Answer

An internet gateway

Answer

A larger Route 53 hosted zone