SAP-C02 Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization — 20 Questions

Question 1

A company wants to migrate a legacy monolithic application to AWS with minimal changes. The application currently runs on a single on-premises server with a Microsoft SQL Server database. The company wants to use AWS managed services to reduce operational overhead. Which combination of services should the company use to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) to Amazon EC2, and AWS DMS to Amazon RDS for SQL Server. Option B is correct because AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) enables lift-and-shift migration of the on-premises server to Amazon EC2 with minimal changes, while AWS DMS can migrate the Microsoft SQL Server database to Amazon RDS for SQL Server, a fully managed service that reduces operational overhead. This combination meets the requirement of minimal application changes and leverages AWS managed services for the database.

Answer

AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) to Amazon EC2, and AWS DMS to Amazon DynamoDB

Answer

AWS Server Migration Service (SMS) to Amazon EC2, and AWS DMS to Amazon RDS for SQL Server

Answer

AWS CloudFormation to provision EC2 instances, and AWS DMS to Amazon RDS for SQL Server

Question 2

A company is migrating a large-scale, stateful application to AWS. The application maintains session state in memory on the current on-premises servers. The company needs a solution that preserves session state during migration and minimizes latency for users worldwide. Which strategy should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Global Accelerator to gradually shift traffic, and use Amazon ElastiCache for Redis to centralize session state. Option A is correct because AWS Global Accelerator allows you to gradually shift traffic from on-premises to AWS using endpoint weights, minimizing disruption during migration. Amazon ElastiCache for Redis provides a centralized, in-memory session store that preserves session state across the migration, ensuring low-latency access for users worldwide by leveraging Global Accelerator's anycast IP and AWS edge locations.

Answer

Use Amazon Route 53 weighted routing to shift traffic to new EC2 instances, and store session state in Amazon S3

Answer

Use AWS CloudFront to cache static content, and use Amazon DynamoDB for session state

Answer

Use AWS Global Accelerator to shift traffic, and deploy AWS WAF to protect the application

Question 3

A company plans to modernize an existing .NET Framework 4.7 application running on Windows Server 2012 R2. The company wants to move to a containerized architecture on AWS with minimal code changes. Which service should the company use to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

AWS App2Container (A2C). AWS App2Container (A2C) is specifically designed to containerize existing .NET Framework applications running on Windows Server with minimal code changes. It analyzes the application, generates Docker images, and produces CloudFormation templates for deployment on Amazon ECS or EKS, directly meeting the requirement to modernize a .NET Framework 4.7 application to a containerized architecture without significant refactoring.

Answer

AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM)

Answer

AWS Copilot

Answer

AWS Migration Hub

Question 4

A company is migrating a 10 TB Oracle database to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. The database is business-critical and must have minimal downtime. The company has set up AWS DMS with ongoing replication from the source. During the migration, the company notices that DMS is failing with an error indicating insufficient memory. What should the company do to resolve this issue and complete the migration?

Accepted Answer

Increase the instance class of the DMS replication instance. AWS DMS replication instances have finite memory allocated to cache changes during ongoing replication (CDC). When the volume of cached changes exceeds the instance's memory, DMS fails with an insufficient memory error. Increasing the instance class of the DMS replication instance (Option B) provides more memory to handle the cache, resolving the error without disrupting the migration.

Answer

Increase the memory on the source Oracle database

Answer

Change the DMS task to use change data capture (CDC) only and skip the full load

Answer

Split the migration into multiple smaller tasks

Question 5

A company is using AWS Migration Hub to track a large-scale migration to AWS. The company wants to automate the replatforming of multiple Windows web servers to Amazon EC2 instances running Amazon Linux 2. The migration must be repeatable and minimize manual intervention. Which AWS service should the company use to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

AWS Application Migration Service (MGN). AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) is the correct choice because it automates the replatforming of Windows web servers to Amazon Linux 2 by continuously replicating source servers, performing automated conversion of the OS and applications, and enabling cutover to target EC2 instances with minimal manual intervention. It supports heterogeneous OS migrations (e.g., Windows to Linux) and provides a repeatable, automated workflow that aligns with the company's requirement for a large-scale, repeatable migration.

Answer

AWS OpsWorks for Chef Automate

Answer

AWS Server Migration Service (SMS)

Answer

AWS CloudFormation templates to provision new EC2 instances and migrate data manually

Question 6

A company is migrating a multi-tier application to AWS and wants to modernize by using containers and serverless technologies. The application consists of a Node.js frontend, a Java backend, and a PostgreSQL database. The company wants to reduce operational overhead and improve scalability. Which TWO strategies should the company use? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Migrate the database to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL. Option B is correct because Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL reduces operational overhead by managing backups, patching, and replication, while providing scalability through read replicas and storage auto-scaling. This aligns with the goal of modernizing the database layer without changing the database engine, avoiding the need to refactor the application to use a NoSQL database like DynamoDB.

Answer

Refactor the Node.js frontend to run on AWS Lambda with Amazon API Gateway

Answer

Migrate the database to Amazon DynamoDB

Answer

Deploy the Java backend on Amazon EC2 with Auto Scaling

Question 7

A company is planning to modernize a legacy Java application that runs on a single on-premises server. The application uses a proprietary file-based storage system. The company wants to migrate to AWS with the following goals: reduce operational overhead, improve availability, and minimize code changes. Which THREE strategies should the company use? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) to migrate the application server to Amazon EC2. AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) is correct because it automates the lift-and-shift migration of the on-premises server to Amazon EC2 with minimal downtime and no code changes, directly addressing the goal of reducing operational overhead and minimizing code changes. It replicates the entire server, including the proprietary file-based storage, to AWS, allowing the application to run unchanged.

Answer

Migrate the proprietary storage to Amazon S3

Answer

Refactor the application into microservices and deploy on Amazon EKS

Question 8

A company is migrating a monolithic .NET application to AWS. The application uses a SQL Server database with complex stored procedures and tightly coupled components. The migration team wants to minimize refactoring and reduce licensing costs. Which migration strategy should the team use?

Accepted Answer

Rehost the application on Amazon EC2 and the database on EC2 with SQL Server using Bring Your Own License (BYOL).. Option B is correct because rehosting (lift-and-shift) the monolithic .NET application on Amazon EC2 and the SQL Server database on EC2 with BYOL minimizes refactoring effort and reduces licensing costs by leveraging existing SQL Server licenses. This strategy avoids the complexity of rewriting stored procedures or decoupling tightly coupled components, which is critical for a migration focused on speed and cost reduction.

Answer

Refactor the application to .NET Core and use Amazon RDS for MySQL to eliminate Windows licensing.

Answer

Rearchitect the application to microservices and use Amazon DynamoDB for the database.

Answer

Replatform the database to Amazon Aurora with PostgreSQL compatibility to reduce licensing costs.

Question 9

A company is migrating a 2 TB Oracle database to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. The database has frequent write operations and the migration must have minimal downtime. The team uses AWS DMS for ongoing replication. After the initial full load, the target Aurora instance becomes unresponsive during ongoing replication. What is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The number of logical replication slots on the Aurora PostgreSQL instance exceeds the maximum supported.. The most likely cause is that the number of logical replication slots on the Aurora PostgreSQL instance exceeds the maximum supported. AWS DMS uses logical replication slots to capture ongoing changes from the source Oracle database and apply them to the target Aurora PostgreSQL. Each DMS task creates at least one replication slot on the target. If the number of slots exceeds the Aurora PostgreSQL limit (typically 1 for Aurora Serverless v1 or a configurable limit for provisioned instances), the target instance can become unresponsive due to resource contention or slot management overhead.

Answer

The DMS task is configured to replicate DDL changes, which are not supported for Oracle to Aurora PostgreSQL.

Answer

The DMS task is using full LOB mode, which is not supported with ongoing replication.

Answer

The target Aurora instance's storage is full and cannot accept new writes.

Question 10

A company is migrating a critical application to AWS and wants to ensure business continuity during the cutover. The migration plan includes a pilot light strategy. Which of the following BEST describes the pilot light pattern?

Accepted Answer

Replicate data to AWS and run a minimal version of the application that can be scaled up during cutover.. The pilot light pattern is a disaster recovery strategy where core data is continuously replicated to AWS, and a minimal version of the application (e.g., a small EC2 instance running the application stack) is kept running. During cutover, this minimal environment is rapidly scaled up to full production capacity. This matches option C, as it describes replicating data and running a minimal version that can be scaled up.

Answer

Take regular backups and restore them in AWS during cutover.

Answer

Run a scaled-down but fully functional version of the environment in AWS at all times.

Answer

Run the application simultaneously in both environments and route traffic to both.

Question 11

A company is migrating a legacy application that uses SOAP web services to AWS. The application currently runs on a single on-premises server. The company wants to minimize changes and reduce operational overhead. Which approach should the company take?

Accepted Answer

Rehost the application on Amazon EC2 using AWS Application Migration Service (MGN).. Option C is correct because rehosting the application on Amazon EC2 using AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) minimizes changes by lifting and shifting the entire on-premises server, including the SOAP web services, to AWS with minimal modification. This approach reduces operational overhead by automating server replication and cutover, avoiding the need to refactor or containerize the application, which aligns with the requirement to minimize changes.

Answer

Refactor the SOAP web services to RESTful APIs and deploy on Amazon API Gateway and AWS Lambda.

Answer

Containerize the application and deploy it on Amazon ECS using Fargate.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to migrate the database and redeploy the application manually.

Question 12

A company is migrating a 5 TB Microsoft SQL Server database to Amazon RDS for SQL Server. The migration must have minimal downtime. The team uses AWS DMS with ongoing replication. During the full load, the task fails with an error indicating that the source server's transaction log is full. What should the team do to resolve this issue?

Accepted Answer

Increase the source server's transaction log size and set the log retention to a higher value.. Option B is correct because the error indicates the source transaction log is full during the full load phase of AWS DMS. Increasing the transaction log size and setting a higher log retention value prevents the log from filling up while DMS reads it for ongoing replication. This allows the full load to complete without interruption, addressing the root cause directly.

Answer

Stop the DMS task, take a native backup of the source, restore it to RDS, and then start DMS with ongoing replication.

Answer

Pause the DMS task, create a larger source instance, and restart the task.

Answer

Switch the DMS task to use batch-optimized apply mode.

Question 13

A company is planning to migrate a legacy application to AWS. The application runs on a single server with a monolithic architecture and uses an Oracle database. The migration team wants to reduce licensing costs and improve scalability. Which TWO strategies should the team consider?

Accepted Answer

Replatform the application to use AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL.. Option A is correct because replatforming the application to AWS Elastic Beanstalk reduces operational overhead by automating capacity provisioning, load balancing, and scaling, while migrating from Oracle to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL eliminates Oracle licensing costs and provides a managed database service with built-in high availability and scalability. This approach directly addresses the company's goals of reducing licensing costs and improving scalability without requiring a full application rewrite.

Answer

Refactor the application into microservices and use Amazon DynamoDB for data storage.

Answer

Rehost the application on Amazon EC2 and use Amazon RDS for Oracle with license-included.

Answer

Rehost the application on Amazon EC2 and use Amazon RDS for Oracle with BYOL.

Question 14

A company is migrating a large e-commerce platform to AWS using a lift-and-shift approach. The application consists of a web tier, application tier, and a MySQL database. After migration, users report intermittent slow page loads. The operations team notices high CPU utilization on the application tier instances. Which THREE steps should the team take to address the performance issues?

Accepted Answer

Implement Amazon CloudFront to cache static content and reduce load on the web tier.. Option A is correct because implementing Amazon CloudFront to cache static content offloads requests from the web tier, reducing the number of dynamic requests that reach the application tier. This directly lowers CPU utilization on the application instances by minimizing the processing overhead for repeated static asset deliveries.

Answer

Replace the current application tier instances with larger instance types.

Answer

Move the MySQL database to Amazon RDS for MySQL and enable Multi-AZ deployment.

Question 15

A company is migrating a legacy .NET Framework 4.7 web application to AWS. The application currently runs on Windows Server 2012 R2 with IIS and uses SQL Server Express for local storage. The company wants to minimize re-architecture and reduce operational overhead. Which migration strategy should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Rehost the application on Amazon EC2 Windows instances using an AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) partner tool.. Option D is correct because rehosting (lift-and-shift) the .NET Framework 4.7 application to Amazon EC2 Windows instances minimizes re-architecture and reduces operational overhead. The application is tightly coupled to Windows Server and IIS, and SQL Server Express is a local database; rehosting preserves the existing architecture without code changes. Using an AWS MAP partner tool streamlines the migration process, aligning with the goal of minimizing changes.

Answer

Retire the application and replace it with a SaaS-based solution.

Answer

Refactor the application to use .NET Core and deploy on Linux containers with Amazon ECS.

Answer

Replatform the application to use AWS Elastic Beanstalk with a SQL Server Express Multi-AZ RDS instance.

Question 16

A retail company is migrating its on-premises e-commerce platform to AWS. The platform consists of a load-balanced web tier, an application tier, and a MySQL database. The company wants to modernize the database by migrating to Amazon Aurora MySQL. The migration must have minimal downtime and support rollback. The database is 2 TB in size and has high write activity. The company has set up an AWS Direct Connect connection. Which approach should the company take to migrate the database with minimal downtime?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS SCT to convert the schema, then use AWS DMS with a full load and ongoing replication (CDC) task to keep the target in sync until cutover.. Option B is correct because AWS DMS with a full load and ongoing change data capture (CDC) task enables continuous replication of high-write activity from the on-premises MySQL database to Amazon Aurora MySQL, minimizing downtime by keeping the target synchronized until cutover. The CDC component captures incremental changes after the full load, allowing a near-zero downtime migration with the ability to roll back by stopping replication and reverting to the source.

Answer

Use AWS SCT to convert the schema, then use AWS DMS with a full load task to migrate the data.

Answer

Use mysqldump to export the database, transfer the dump via AWS Direct Connect, and import into Aurora MySQL.

Answer

Use the AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT) to convert the schema, then set up an Aurora Replica from the on-premises source using native MySQL replication.

Question 17

A company is migrating a monolithic Java application to AWS. The current architecture uses a single Oracle database. The migration plan is to refactor the application into microservices and use separate Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL databases per service. The company also wants to implement a CI/CD pipeline using AWS CodePipeline and AWS CodeBuild. Which tool should the company use to automate the database schema changes for each microservice?

Accepted Answer

Flyway, integrated into the CI/CD pipeline to run database migrations as part of the application deployment.. Flyway is a database migration tool that integrates directly into CI/CD pipelines, allowing schema changes to be version-controlled and applied automatically during application deployment. For a microservices architecture with separate PostgreSQL databases, Flyway can manage each service's schema independently, ensuring consistency and rollback capability. This aligns with the requirement to automate schema changes per microservice as part of the migration and modernization effort.

Answer

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to continuously replicate schema changes from the source Oracle database.

Answer

AWS CloudFormation with custom resource Lambda functions to run SQL scripts.

Answer

AWS CLI scripts executed in CodeBuild to run SQL commands against the target databases.

Question 18

A company is migrating its on-premises PostgreSQL database to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. The database is 2 TB in size and has a 24-hour maintenance window on weekends. The company needs to minimize downtime and ensure data consistency. Which strategy should the solutions architect recommend?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS DMS with ongoing replication from the on-premises database to Aurora, then perform a cutover during the maintenance window.. AWS DMS with ongoing replication (change data capture, CDC) allows the on-premises PostgreSQL database to be continuously synchronized with the target Aurora PostgreSQL cluster, minimizing downtime. When the cutover is performed during the 24-hour maintenance window, data consistency is ensured because all changes up to that point have been replicated. This approach avoids the need for a lengthy full database dump and restore, which would cause extended downtime.

Answer

Create an Aurora read replica from the on-premises database using a VPN connection.

Answer

Use AWS Schema Conversion Tool (AWS SCT) to convert the schema and then use AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) with full load only.

Answer

Perform a full pg_dump of the on-premises database and restore it to Aurora using pg_restore.

Question 19

A company is using AWS DMS to migrate a SQL Server database to Amazon Redshift. The initial full load completed, but the ongoing replication task failed with the error shown. What is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The source SQL Server transaction log has not been backed up or truncated, causing it to become full.. The error indicates that AWS DMS cannot read the source SQL Server transaction log to capture ongoing changes. This typically occurs when the transaction log is full because it has not been backed up or truncated, preventing DMS from reading new log records for continuous replication. DMS relies on the source database's transaction log for CDC (Change Data Capture), and a full log blocks this process.

Answer

The DMS task is not configured to use a task log for troubleshooting.

Answer

The target Redshift table does not have a primary key defined for the DMS task to apply changes.

Answer

The DMS task is using a full LOB mode, which is not supported for Redshift targets.

Question 20

A retail company is migrating its e-commerce platform from a monolith running on a single on-premises server to AWS. The current application consists of a Java-based web server, a MySQL database, and a caching layer using Redis. The company wants to modernize the architecture by adopting microservices, using serverless where possible, and minimizing operational overhead. The migration must be completed within six months with minimal disruption to ongoing operations. The solutions architect proposes the following initial steps: containerize the Java application and run it on Amazon ECS with Fargate, migrate the MySQL database to Amazon Aurora Serverless v2, and replace Redis with Amazon ElastiCache for Redis Serverless. However, the team is concerned about the complexity of the migration and the potential for downtime. Which recommendation should the solutions architect make to address these concerns?

Accepted Answer

Use the Strangler Fig pattern to incrementally replace monolith functionality with microservices, routing traffic to new services as they are built.. Option C is correct because the Strangler Fig pattern allows the team to incrementally replace specific functionalities of the monolithic e-commerce platform with microservices, routing traffic to the new services as they are built. This minimizes disruption and downtime by avoiding a big-bang cutover, and it aligns with the goal of modernizing to microservices and serverless within the six-month timeline. The pattern leverages an existing ingress controller (e.g., an Application Load Balancer with path-based routing) to gradually shift requests from the monolith to new services running on Amazon ECS with Fargate, while the database and caching layers are migrated separately with minimal impact.

Answer

Rewrite the entire application as microservices from scratch and deploy them in a new AWS environment. Cut over all traffic at once after testing.

Answer

Use AWS Blue/Green deployment for the monolith to reduce downtime, then migrate to microservices after the deployment is stable.

Answer

Perform a lift-and-shift migration of the monolith to EC2 instances, then gradually refactor into microservices over the next year.