SAP-C02 Practice Test 26 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company wants to deploy a containerized application on AWS. The application requires persistent storage that can be shared across multiple containers running on different EC2 instances. Which AWS service should be used?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EFS. Option D is correct. Amazon EFS provides a shared file system that can be mounted by multiple EC2 instances. Option A is wrong because EBS volumes can only be attached to one instance at a time. Option B is wrong because S3 is object storage, not a file system. Option C is wrong because Instance Store is ephemeral.

Answer

EC2 Instance Store

Answer

Amazon S3

Answer

Amazon EBS

Question 2

A company is designing a data lake on Amazon S3. Data is ingested from various sources, including IoT devices, and must be stored in a cost-effective manner. The data access patterns are unpredictable; some data is accessed frequently for a few days, then rarely accessed. The company wants to minimize storage costs while ensuring data is available within minutes when accessed. Which storage class should they use for the data?

Accepted Answer

S3 Intelligent-Tiering. Option D is correct because S3 Intelligent-Tiering automatically moves data between frequent and infrequent access tiers based on usage patterns, with no retrieval charges for infrequent access, and data is available within milliseconds. Option A is wrong because S3 Standard is expensive for rarely accessed data. Option B is wrong because S3 Glacier Deep Archive has retrieval times of 12 hours. Option C is wrong because S3 One Zone-IA is not durable enough for a data lake.

Answer

S3 Standard

Answer

S3 Glacier Deep Archive

Answer

S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access

Question 3

Refer to the exhibit. A solutions architect runs this CLI command but receives an error: 'Unknown options: --query'. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The --query parameter is used without specifying --output.. Option B is correct. The --query parameter is not supported by the ec2 describe-instances command in the default output format; it requires the --output json or --output table option to be specified first. Option A is wrong because the command syntax is correct. Option C is wrong because the filter is valid. Option D is wrong because the output table is specified.

Answer

The --filters parameter is incorrectly formatted.

Answer

The tag value is missing.

Answer

The AWS CLI version is outdated.

Question 4

A company is designing a serverless data processing pipeline using AWS Lambda. The pipeline processes data from an Amazon Kinesis Data Stream. The Lambda function has a memory limit of 512 MB and a timeout of 5 minutes. The data volume is expected to increase significantly. Which TWO strategies should the company implement to improve throughput and reduce processing latency? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Increase the number of shards in the Kinesis data stream. Increasing the number of shards increases parallelism. Using a larger batch size reduces the number of Lambda invocations. Option A (increase memory) may improve performance but each invocation still processes one batch. Option C (concurrent executions limit increase) is not needed if the account limit is not hit. Option D (change to SQS) changes the architecture.

Answer

Change the data source from Kinesis to an Amazon SQS queue

Answer

Increase the Lambda function's reserved concurrency to a higher value

Question 5

A company is designing a real-time analytics platform that ingests data from thousands of IoT devices. The platform must process and store high-velocity data with low latency. Which TWO AWS services should be used together to meet these requirements? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Amazon Kinesis Data Streams. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams ingests high-velocity streaming data. Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics performs real-time analytics on the stream. Option B (Lambda) can be used but not as the primary analytics engine. Option C (S3) is for storage, not real-time. Option D (DynamoDB) is for low-latency queries but not for stream analytics. Option E (SQS) is for message queuing, not real-time analytics.

Answer

AWS Lambda

Answer

Amazon S3

Answer

Amazon SQS

Question 6

A company is designing a new application that must meet PCI DSS compliance requirements. The application will process credit card transactions and store encrypted data. Which AWS service should be used to manage the encryption keys?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudHSM. Option D is correct because AWS CloudHSM provides dedicated hardware security modules (HSMs) that meet PCI DSS requirements for key management. Option A (SSE-S3) is for S3. Option B (KMS) is managed but not dedicated HSM. Option C (Secrets Manager) is for secrets, not encryption keys.

Answer

AWS Key Management Service (KMS)

Answer

AWS Secrets Manager

Answer

Amazon S3 server-side encryption (SSE-S3)

Question 7

A company is designing a multi-region active-active application using Amazon Aurora Global Database. The application writes to a custom domain endpoint that routes to the primary cluster. To minimize write latency, the application should write to the nearest region. Which configuration should the solutions architect use?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon DynamoDB global tables instead of Aurora Global Database, as DynamoDB supports multi-region writes.. Option B is correct because an Aurora Global Database has one primary region and multiple secondary regions. The primary region handles all writes; secondary regions are read-only. To allow writes from multiple regions, you would need a different architecture, such as using DynamoDB global tables. Option A is incorrect because Route 53 latency-based routing does not change the fact that only the primary cluster accepts writes. Option C is incorrect because there is only one primary cluster. Option D is incorrect because cross-region read replicas do not accept writes.

Answer

Configure Aurora Global Database with multiple primary clusters, each in a different region, and use Route 53 to route writes.

Answer

Use Aurora cross-region read replicas and failover to a secondary region for writes.

Answer

Use Route 53 latency-based routing to direct writes to the nearest region. Each region has its own Aurora cluster.

Question 8

A company is hosting a static website on Amazon S3. The website uses JavaScript to make API calls to a backend API hosted on Amazon API Gateway. The company wants to reduce latency for users worldwide. Which combination of AWS services should the solutions architect use? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Use CloudFront with API Gateway as an origin.. Option B and Option E are correct. CloudFront can be used as a CDN for both the S3 static website and to accelerate API calls via CloudFront with API Gateway as an origin. S3 Transfer Acceleration speeds up uploads to S3, but for API calls, CloudFront is better. Option A is incorrect because S3 Transfer Acceleration is for uploads, not for latency reduction for API calls. Option C is incorrect because Global Accelerator improves TCP performance but is not typically used for static websites. Option D is incorrect because Lambda@Edge runs at CloudFront edge, but does not replace API Gateway.

Answer

Use AWS Global Accelerator for the S3 website.

Answer

Use Lambda@Edge to process API calls at the edge.

Answer

Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration on the bucket.

Question 9

A company is designing a multi-region disaster recovery solution for a critical application running on Amazon EC2. The application uses an Amazon Aurora MySQL database. The RTO is 15 minutes and RPO is 1 minute. Which THREE steps should the solutions architect take to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Pre-provision EC2 instances in the DR region with the application code and configuration.. Options B, D, and E are correct. Aurora Global Database provides replication with RPO of seconds and failover in minutes. Pre-provisioning standby instances in the DR region ensures capacity. Using Route 53 health checks with failover routing allows automatic DNS failover. Option A is incorrect because restoring from snapshots takes longer than 15 minutes. Option C is incorrect because cross-region read replicas do not automatically failover; manual promotion required.

Answer

Configure a cross-region read replica in the DR region and promote it during failover.

Answer

Take frequent snapshots of the Aurora cluster and copy them to the DR region.

Question 10

A company is designing a new microservices architecture on AWS. Each service needs to store and retrieve small amounts of configuration data (under 10 KB per item) with low latency. The data is accessed frequently and must be highly available across multiple Availability Zones. Which AWS service should be used?

Accepted Answer

Amazon DynamoDB. Option C is correct because DynamoDB provides single-digit millisecond latency, high availability, and is ideal for storing small configuration items. Option A (S3) has higher latency for small objects and is not optimized for frequent updates. Option B (ElastiCache) is for temporary caching, not durable storage. Option D (RDS) is overkill for simple config data.

Answer

Amazon S3

Answer

Amazon ElastiCache for Memcached

Answer

Amazon RDS for MySQL

Question 11

A startup is deploying a web application on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. The application stores session state in an Amazon DynamoDB table. To improve performance, the team wants to reduce latency for read-heavy workloads. Which design change would be MOST effective?

Accepted Answer

Enable DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) for the session table.. Option C is correct because DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) is an in-memory cache designed specifically for DynamoDB, reducing read latency. Option A is wrong because ElastiCache would require additional application code changes to integrate. Option B is wrong because increasing instance size is a generic scaling solution, not optimizing read latency. Option D is wrong because Auto Scaling does not reduce latency for individual requests.

Answer

Add an Amazon ElastiCache Redis cluster in front of DynamoDB to cache session data.

Answer

Use an Auto Scaling group to add more EC2 instances during peak hours.

Answer

Increase the size of the EC2 instances to handle more concurrent users.

Question 12

Which THREE design patterns can help a microservices application achieve loose coupling and independent deployability? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Circuit breaker pattern to handle service failures. Options B, C, and D are correct. B: Event-driven communication via SNS/SQS decouples services. C: API Gateway provides a facade that routes to different services independently. D: Circuit breaker pattern prevents cascading failures, allowing independent failure handling. Option A is wrong because shared database creates tight coupling. Option E is wrong because synchronous HTTP calls create tight coupling.

Answer

Shared database schema across services

Answer

Synchronous RESTful HTTP calls between services

Question 13

A solutions architect is designing a disaster recovery plan for a critical application. The application runs on EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB) in us-east-1. The recovery time objective (RTO) is 15 minutes, and the recovery point objective (RPO) is 1 hour. Which approach meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use a warm standby: maintain a scaled-down copy of the environment in us-west-2 that can be scaled up within 15 minutes.. Using a warm standby with a scaled-down copy of the environment in another region and failing over within 15 minutes meets RTO/RPO. Option D is correct. Option A is wrong because pilot light takes longer to scale. Option B is wrong because backup and restore has higher RTO. Option C is wrong because multi-site active-active is overkill and may exceed RTO if not properly configured.

Answer

Use backup and restore: take hourly snapshots of EBS volumes and copy to us-west-2, then restore EC2 instances from snapshots.

Answer

Implement a pilot light strategy: replicate data to us-west-2 and keep a minimal stack running.

Answer

Deploy a multi-site active-active configuration with full capacity in both regions.

Question 14

A company is designing a new system to ingest and process real-time streaming data from thousands of IoT devices. The system must be able to handle variable throughput and provide durable storage for the data. The data will be processed by a Lambda function and then stored in Amazon S3. Which two services should be used together to build this ingestion pipeline?

Accepted Answer

AWS Lambda. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams provides durable, scalable ingestion, and AWS Lambda can process the data in real time. Option A and C are correct. Option B is wrong because Kinesis Data Firehose is used for loading data into destinations, not for real-time processing with Lambda (though it can invoke Lambda, but Data Streams is better for real-time). Option D is wrong because SQS is for message queues, not streaming. Option E is wrong because SNS is for pub/sub notifications.

Answer

Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose

Answer

Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)

Answer

Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)

Question 15

A company is designing a new application that requires a relational database with automated backups and multi-AZ redundancy. The database workload is predictable with occasional read replicas for reporting. Which AWS service should be used?

Accepted Answer

Amazon RDS. Option C is correct because Amazon RDS offers managed relational databases with automated backups and multi-AZ deployments. Option A is wrong because DynamoDB is NoSQL, not relational. Option B is wrong because Redshift is a data warehouse. Option D is wrong because ElastiCache is for caching.

Answer

Amazon Redshift

Answer

Amazon DynamoDB

Answer

Amazon ElastiCache