SAP-C02 Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization Practice Test 20 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is migrating a large-scale on-premises Apache Kafka cluster to AWS. The cluster handles real-time streaming data from thousands of IoT devices. The company wants to reduce operational overhead and ensure high availability. Which AWS service should be used?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (MSK). Amazon MSK is the correct choice because it is a fully managed service for Apache Kafka that runs the same open-source Kafka APIs, so existing producers, consumers, and tooling migrate without code changes. MSK handles broker provisioning, patching, replication across AZs, and automatic recovery, directly reducing operational overhead while providing high availability. It also integrates with VPC, IAM, KMS, and CloudWatch for security and monitoring.

Answer

Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)

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Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)

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Amazon Kinesis Data Streams

Question 2

A company is migrating its on-premises VMware VMs to AWS. The company wants to use the same management tools and maintain consistency. Which AWS service should be used for this migration?

Accepted Answer

VMware Cloud on AWS. VMware Cloud on AWS is the correct service because it runs the actual VMware SDDC (vSphere, vSAN, NSX) on AWS bare-metal infrastructure, allowing the company to keep using its existing VMware management tools like vCenter and vSphere Client while gaining AWS services. This directly satisfies the requirement to maintain tooling consistency during migration. AWS SMS and DMS are migration tools, not environments that preserve VMware management tooling, and Snowball Edge is a physical data-transfer device.

Answer

AWS Server Migration Service (SMS)

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AWS Snowball Edge

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AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)

Question 3

A company is modernizing its legacy PHP application to run on AWS. The application is currently deployed on a single on-premises server with a LAMP stack. The company wants to use containerization to improve scalability and deployment speed. Which AWS service should be used to run the containers with minimal operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Amazon ECS with AWS Fargate. Amazon ECS with AWS Fargate is correct because Fargate is a serverless compute engine for containers that eliminates the need to provision, configure, or manage EC2 instances. The company can run its containerized PHP application without patching hosts or scaling clusters, delivering minimal operational overhead while supporting containerization for scalability and faster deployments.

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AWS Lambda

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Amazon EKS with Amazon EC2

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Amazon ECS with Amazon EC2 launch type

Question 4

A company is migrating a multi-tier web application to AWS. The application consists of a web server, application server, and Oracle database. Which TWO AWS services should be used to modernize the application while reducing operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Amazon RDS for Oracle. Amazon RDS for Oracle (A) is correct because it is a managed relational database service that supports Oracle engines, automating tasks such as provisioning, patching, backups, and Multi-AZ replication, which reduces the operational overhead of running the Oracle database tier. AWS Elastic Beanstalk (C) is correct because it provides a managed platform for deploying and scaling web and application server tiers, handling capacity provisioning, load balancing, and application health monitoring so the company can modernize without managing underlying infrastructure. Amazon Lightsail (B) is not appropriate because it is a simplified VPS offering aimed at small, simple workloads and does not provide the managed multi-tier or Oracle capabilities needed here. Amazon EC2 (D) is not the best choice because it requires the company to manage the operating system, patching, scaling, and database operations itself, increasing operational overhead. Amazon DynamoDB (E) is incorrect because it is a NoSQL key-value/document database and cannot replace the existing Oracle relational database workload.

Answer

Amazon Lightsail

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Amazon EC2

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Amazon DynamoDB

Question 5

A company is planning to migrate its on-premises infrastructure to AWS. The company wants to assess the current environment and create a migration plan. Which TWO AWS services should be used for discovery and assessment?

Accepted Answer

AWS Migration Hub. AWS Application Discovery Service (D) is correct because it is purpose-built to discover on-premises servers and collect configuration, usage, and dependency data (via the agentless Discovery Connector or the Discovery Agent) that feeds migration planning. AWS Migration Hub (B) is correct because it provides a single place to track the migration status of applications across multiple migration tools, including discoveries from Application Discovery Service, which is exactly what is needed to build and monitor a migration plan. AWS Server Migration Service (A) is a migration/replication tool for moving VMs, not a discovery and assessment service. Amazon CloudWatch (C) is a monitoring service for AWS and on-premises resources' metrics and logs, not an environment discovery tool. AWS Trusted Advisor (E) provides best-practice checks and recommendations for AWS accounts, not on-premises discovery or migration planning.

Answer

AWS Server Migration Service (SMS)

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Amazon CloudWatch

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AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 6

A company is migrating a Windows-based .NET application to AWS. The application uses SQL Server for its database and stores documents on a Windows file share. The company wants to adopt a hybrid model initially, where the application runs on AWS but still connects to on-premises resources for legacy integration. The migration must use a phased approach: first move the compute to AWS, then the database, and finally the file storage. The company has high latency to the internet and wants to optimize data transfer. You have set up a Direct Connect connection. During the first phase, you migrate the web and application servers to Amazon EC2 Windows instances. You need to ensure that the EC2 instances can access the on-premises SQL Server and file share securely. Which combination of actions should be taken?

Accepted Answer

Place the EC2 instances in a private subnet. Create a VPN connection or use Direct Connect virtual interface to connect to on-premises. Configure security groups to allow traffic to on-premises SQL Server and file share.. Placing EC2 instances in a private subnet keeps them off the public internet while still allowing outbound access through the VPC route table. A Direct Connect virtual interface (private VIF) or a VPN connection provides private, low-latency connectivity to on-premises SQL Server and file share, and security groups can be scoped to allow only the required SQL (1433) and SMB (445) traffic. This matches the hybrid, phased migration model where compute moves first but still depends on on-premises data.

Answer

Place the EC2 instances in a private subnet with a NAT gateway. Use VPC peering to on-premises.

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Place the EC2 instances in a public subnet. Use an internet gateway and configure security groups to allow inbound traffic from on-premises IPs.

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Use Amazon EC2-Classic and link the instances to on-premises via ClassicLink.

Question 7

A company is migrating an on-premises monolithic application to AWS. The application uses a legacy database that cannot be easily refactored. The company wants to minimize changes to the application code while gaining scalability and high availability. Which migration strategy should the architect recommend?

Accepted Answer

Rehost the application on Amazon EC2 and use Amazon RDS for the database.. Rehosting (lift-and-shift) moves the application to Amazon EC2 and the legacy database to Amazon RDS with minimal code changes, satisfying the requirement to minimize application modifications. Amazon RDS provides managed high availability through Multi-AZ deployments and read scalability via read replicas, while EC2 offers the familiar environment the monolithic app expects. This strategy preserves the existing database engine compatibility (e.g., Oracle, SQL Server) so the application's connection strings and queries remain largely unchanged. It directly addresses scalability and HA without forcing a refactor or replatform.

Answer

Replatform the application to use AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Amazon DynamoDB.

Answer

Refactor the application to use a microservices architecture with Amazon Aurora.

Answer

Retire the application and replace it with a SaaS solution.

Question 8

An organization is modernizing a legacy application by breaking it into microservices on AWS. The application processes customer orders and sends notifications. The team wants to decouple the order processing from the notification service to improve scalability. Which AWS service should they use to asynchronously pass messages between the services?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS). Amazon SQS is a fully managed message queue service that enables decoupling of application components. SNS is pub/sub; EventBridge is event bus; Kinesis is for real-time streaming. For simple point-to-point async messaging, SQS is the best fit.

Answer

Amazon Kinesis Data Streams

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Amazon EventBridge

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Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS)

Question 9

A company is migrating a legacy e-commerce platform to AWS. The platform includes a MySQL database that experiences heavy read traffic. The company wants to improve performance and reduce latency for read operations. Which TWO actions should the solutions architect take?

Accepted Answer

Add read replicas to the RDS MySQL database.. Option D is correct because RDS MySQL read replicas use asynchronous replication to offload read-only queries from the primary instance, directly improving read performance and reducing latency for heavy read traffic. Option E is correct because Amazon ElastiCache (Redis or Memcached) caches frequently accessed query results in memory, serving reads in microseconds and dramatically reducing the load and latency on the MySQL database. Option A is not correct because Multi-AZ provides high availability through a synchronous standby that does not serve read traffic, so it does not improve read performance. Option B is not correct because sharding is a complex manual partitioning strategy typically used for write scaling or very large datasets, not the simplest fix for read-heavy latency. Option C is not correct because Provisioned IOPS improves storage throughput and IOPS for the database volume but does not scale read capacity beyond what a single instance can serve.

Answer

Enable Multi-AZ on the RDS instance.

Answer

Shard the database across multiple RDS instances.

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Upgrade to Provisioned IOPS for the database.

Question 10

A company is migrating a web application to AWS and wants to use a microservices architecture. The application needs to communicate synchronously via REST APIs. Which TWO AWS services should the architect consider for implementing API communication?

Accepted Answer

Application Load Balancer. Option A (Application Load Balancer) is correct because an ALB operates at Layer 7 and can route HTTP/HTTPS REST requests to microservices targets such as ECS tasks, Lambda functions, or EC2 instances, providing synchronous request/response communication. Option C (Amazon API Gateway) is correct because it is a fully managed service purpose-built for creating, publishing, and securing REST APIs, and it natively supports synchronous REST communication to backend microservices. Option B (AWS Step Functions) is incorrect because it orchestrates workflows asynchronously through state machines rather than providing synchronous REST API endpoints. Option D (AWS AppSync) is incorrect because it is designed for GraphQL APIs, not REST APIs. Option E (Amazon SQS) is incorrect because it is an asynchronous message queueing service and does not provide synchronous REST API communication.

Answer

AWS Step Functions

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AWS AppSync

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Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS)

Question 11

A company is using AWS Migration Hub to track a server migration. The migration task has failed with the error shown in the exhibit. Which action should the solutions architect take to resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

Ensure the source server's SSL certificate is signed by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA).. The migration task failed due to an SSL certificate validation error, which occurs when the source server presents a certificate not signed by a trusted Certificate Authority. AWS MGN (Application Migration Service) requires a valid, trusted certificate for the replication agent's TLS connection. Ensuring the source server's SSL certificate is signed by a trusted CA resolves the handshake failure.

Answer

Change the migration port from 443 to 80.

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Retry the migration using AWS CloudEndure instead of AWS MGN.

Answer

Increase the timeout value for the migration task.

Question 12

A company is migrating a critical application to AWS using a lift-and-shift approach. The application runs on two on-premises servers: a web server and a database server running SQL Server. The company has deployed the web server on an EC2 instance behind an Application Load Balancer, and the database on an RDS for SQL Server Multi-AZ instance. After migration, users report that the application is noticeably slower compared to on-premises. The application uses a large number of database transactions, and latency between the web server and database has increased. The web server is in us-east-1a, and the RDS primary instance is in us-east-1b. The solutions architect verifies that the application is using the RDS endpoint, not the IP address. What should the architect do to reduce latency?

Accepted Answer

Move the web server EC2 instance to the same Availability Zone as the RDS primary instance.. Cross-AZ traffic between the web server in us-east-1a and the RDS primary in us-east-1b adds roughly 1–2 ms of latency per round trip, which compounds dramatically for chatty applications issuing many small database transactions. Moving the EC2 web server into the same AZ as the RDS primary eliminates that cross-AZ hop, restoring on-premises-like latency. The application already uses the RDS endpoint, so no DNS or connection-string change is needed.

Answer

Enable Multi-AZ on the web server EC2 instance.

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Upgrade the web server EC2 instance to a larger instance type with enhanced networking.

Answer

Deploy Amazon CloudFront in front of the web server to cache responses.

Question 13

A company is migrating a legacy .NET Framework 4.7 application to AWS. The application currently uses Windows Authentication and stores session state in-process. The company wants to minimize code changes and use AWS managed services. Which TWO strategies should the company adopt?

Accepted Answer

Migrate the application to run on Amazon EC2 instances joined to AWS Managed Microsoft AD.. Option A is correct because joining Amazon EC2 instances to AWS Managed Microsoft AD preserves Windows Authentication (Kerberos/NTLM) for the legacy .NET Framework 4.7 app, allowing it to authenticate domain users without code changes while using a managed AWS directory service. Option C is correct because moving in-process session state to Amazon ElastiCache for Redis via the Redis Session State Provider requires only configuration changes (web.config) and no application rewrite, and ElastiCache is an AWS managed service. Option B is not appropriate because rewriting to .NET Core and migrating to Elastic Beanstalk with RDS for SQL Server involves significant code changes and does not directly address Windows Authentication. Option D is not suitable because Amazon Cognito with an AD connector targets modern web/mobile identity federation rather than preserving existing Windows Authentication for a legacy .NET Framework application without changes. Option E is not correct because DynamoDB is not a drop-in session state provider for ASP.NET without custom code, and it does not address the Windows Authentication requirement.

Answer

Rewrite the application to .NET Core and deploy on AWS Elastic Beanstalk with Amazon RDS for SQL Server.

Answer

Use Amazon Cognito with an Active Directory connector for authentication.

Answer

Use Amazon DynamoDB to persist session state.

Question 14

A company is migrating a legacy monolithic application to AWS. The application currently runs on a single Windows Server with IIS and SQL Server. The company wants to adopt a microservices architecture on AWS using containers. The development team has containerized the application into several Docker containers. The company needs a solution that minimizes operational overhead for managing the container orchestration and scaling, and also integrates with AWS services like IAM, CloudWatch, and VPC. Which AWS service should the company use to run the containers?

Accepted Answer

Amazon ECS with the Fargate launch type.. Amazon ECS with the Fargate launch type is a serverless compute engine for containers that eliminates the need to provision or manage EC2 instances, directly minimizing operational overhead. It natively integrates with IAM task roles, CloudWatch Logs/metrics, and VPC networking (awsvpc mode), matching all stated requirements. This makes it the best fit for a team that wants to run Docker containers without managing orchestration infrastructure.

Answer

Amazon EKS with managed node groups.

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AWS Elastic Beanstalk with a Docker platform.

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Amazon EC2 instances with Docker installed, managed by an Auto Scaling group.

Question 15

A company is migrating a critical application from on-premises to AWS. The application uses a Microsoft SQL Server database with Always On Availability Groups for high availability. The company wants to use Amazon RDS for SQL Server to reduce management overhead. The database size is 500 GB. The migration must have minimal downtime and support transactional consistency. The company has a VPN connection to AWS. Which migration strategy should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS DMS with a full-load migration and ongoing replication from the on-premises SQL Server to RDS for SQL Server.. AWS DMS with full-load plus ongoing replication (CDC) is the standard approach for migrating SQL Server to RDS with minimal downtime and transactional consistency. DMS performs an initial bulk load and then continuously replicates ongoing changes from the source to the target, allowing cutover with minimal downtime. It supports SQL Server Always On Availability Groups as a source by connecting to the listener, and it maintains transactional consistency.

Answer

Take a full backup of the database, restore it to RDS, and then schedule a final backup and restore after cutting over.

Answer

Use the SQL Server Import/Export Wizard to copy data from on-premises to RDS over the VPN.

Answer

Use AWS SCT to convert the database schema and then use AWS DMS for data migration.