SAP-C02 Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization Practice Test 21 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is migrating a web application from on-premises to AWS. The application consists of a stateless web tier and a stateful application tier that stores session data in a local file system. The company wants to use AWS Elastic Beanstalk for both tiers. During a test migration, the development team notices that users are being logged out intermittently. The application tier is configured with two EC2 instances behind an internal load balancer. What should the development team do to resolve the issue?

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

Accepted Answer

Move session storage to Amazon ElastiCache for Redis and configure the application to use it.. The issue is that session data is stored locally on each application instance. When traffic is distributed by the internal load balancer, subsequent requests from the same user may go to a different instance, losing the session data. The best practice is to use a centralized session store like Amazon ElastiCache for Redis. This ensures session data persists across all instances. Option A (sticky sessions) would cause load imbalance and is not recommended for high availability. Option C does not address session storage. Option D (DynamoDB) is possible but not as performant for session storage and requires more custom code; Redis is the recommended service for session management.

Answer

Enable sticky sessions (session affinity) on the application tier's load balancer.

Answer

Increase the number of instances in the web tier to reduce the load on the application tier.

Answer

Store session data in Amazon DynamoDB.

Question 2

A company is migrating a legacy application to AWS. The application uses a proprietary binary protocol that is not HTTP-based. The application currently runs on a single server and communicates with clients over TCP port 4444. The company wants to use AWS Elastic Load Balancing to distribute traffic across multiple EC2 instances for high availability. Which load balancer type should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Network Load Balancer (NLB). A Network Load Balancer (NLB) operates at Layer 4 (TCP/UDP/TLS) and can forward arbitrary TCP traffic, including proprietary binary protocols on non-HTTP ports like 4444, while preserving source IP and supporting millions of requests per second with ultra-low latency. Because the application protocol is not HTTP-based, only a Layer 4 load balancer will work.

Answer

AWS Global Accelerator

Answer

Classic Load Balancer (CLB)

Answer

Application Load Balancer (ALB)

Question 3

A company is migrating a large-scale data analytics workload from on-premises to AWS. The workload uses Apache Spark to process terabytes of data daily. The company wants to use Amazon EMR for the migration. The current on-premises cluster has 20 nodes, each with 64 vCPUs and 256 GB of RAM. The data is stored in HDFS on the cluster. The company wants to minimize costs while maintaining performance. The data sources are in Amazon S3 and on-premises. The company has set up a dedicated AWS Direct Connect connection. Which EMR configuration should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Use EMR with EC2 instances of similar size (e.g., r5.8xlarge) and store data in Amazon S3 using EMRFS.. It directly maps the on-premises cluster capacity to equivalent EC2 instances (r5.8xlarge provides 32 vCPUs and 256 GB RAM, so two per node would match the 64 vCPUs and 256 GB RAM). Storing data in S3 via EMRFS eliminates HDFS management and leverages S3 durability and scalability. This configuration minimizes costs by avoiding over-provisioning and using S3 for cost-effective storage, while maintaining performance through Direct Connect for data transfer. Using EMR with similar instance sizes ensures the Spark jobs run efficiently without reconfiguration. Other options introduce unnecessary complexity or higher costs: Option B uses Graviton-based instances which may require code changes, and storing intermediate data on EBS volumes incurs additional costs and management overhead. Option C mixes On-Demand and Spot Instances, which can reduce costs but still requires cluster management and does not align with the goal of minimizing costs while maintaining performance as effectively as option A. Option D uses AWS Glue, which is a fully managed service but may not provide the same level of control or performance for large-scale workloads; it may also be more expensive for sustained high-volume processing compared to EMR with reserved capacity.

Answer

Use EMR with Graviton-based instances and store intermediate data in HDFS on EBS volumes.

Answer

Use EMR with a mix of On-Demand and Spot Instances, and use S3 for all data storage.

Answer

Use AWS Glue to run the Spark jobs with the same resource configuration.

Question 4

A company is migrating a legacy application that uses an Oracle database to AWS. The application is critical and requires high availability with automatic failover. The company wants to use Amazon RDS for Oracle. The database size is 200 GB. The company needs a solution that provides automatic failover to a standby instance in a different Availability Zone with minimal downtime. Which RDS deployment option should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Multi-AZ deployment. Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployment maintains a synchronous standby replica in a different Availability Zone and automatically fails over to it in the event of a primary failure, with minimal downtime (typically 60-120 seconds). It requires no application changes and uses a DNS CNAME that is updated on failover. This directly meets the requirement for automatic failover to a standby in a different AZ.

Answer

Multi-Region deployment with Read Replicas

Answer

Single-AZ deployment with Oracle Data Guard

Answer

Single-AZ deployment with automatic backups

Question 5

A company is migrating a legacy monolithic application to AWS. The application has a stateful session layer that uses local disk storage. The migration plan involves rehosting the application on Amazon EC2 instances. What architecture change should the company implement to ensure high availability and stateless application tiers?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon ElastiCache for session state management.. Moving session state to Amazon ElastiCache (Redis or Memcached) externalizes the stateful layer so EC2 instances become stateless and can be placed behind an ELB/ALB with Auto Scaling. This enables any instance to serve any request, supports horizontal scaling, and survives instance failure without losing sessions. ElastiCache provides the low-latency, in-memory access pattern that session lookups require.

Answer

Store session data in Amazon S3 with Transfer Acceleration.

Answer

Use Amazon RDS with Multi-AZ to store session data.

Answer

Attach Amazon EBS volumes to each EC2 instance for session persistence.

Question 6

A company is migrating a web application to AWS and wants to decouple the frontend and backend tiers to improve scalability. The frontend runs on Amazon EC2 behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The backend processes orders asynchronously. Which service should the company use to decouple the tiers?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS). For decoupling frontend and backend asynchronously, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) is the appropriate service. It allows the frontend to send order messages to a queue, and the backend components poll and process them independently. Option A (Amazon MQ) is a managed message broker for existing protocols like JMS, but SQS is simpler and more scalable for this use case. Option C (Amazon SNS) is a pub/sub service, not designed for point-to-point decoupling with pull-based consumers. Option D (Amazon Kinesis Data Streams) is for real-time streaming data, not for decoupling web tiers.

Answer

Amazon MQ

Answer

Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)

Answer

Amazon Kinesis Data Streams

Question 7

A company is modernizing a .NET Framework application to run on AWS. The application currently uses Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services. The company wants to minimize code changes and run on Linux. Which approach should the company take?

Accepted Answer

Port the application to .NET Core and deploy on Amazon ECS with Linux containers.. Migrating the .NET Framework application to .NET Core allows it to run on Linux with minimal code changes, as .NET Core is cross-platform. Deploying on Amazon ECS with Linux containers meets the requirement to run on Linux. Option A is incorrect because using AWS App2Container to generate Windows containers would still require Windows, not Linux. Option B is incorrect because rewriting WCF services as AWS Lambda functions would require significant refactoring, not minimal code changes. Option D is incorrect because AWS Fargate is a compute platform, not a framework, and running Windows containers does not satisfy the requirement to run on Linux.

Answer

Use AWS App2Container to generate Windows containers and run on Amazon ECS with Windows.

Answer

Rewrite the WCF services as AWS Lambda functions using a custom runtime.

Answer

Containerize the application using AWS Fargate and run on Windows containers.

Question 8

A company is migrating an on-premises application to AWS. The application requires dedicated hardware for licensing compliance. Which AWS service should the company use to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts. Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts provide a physical server dedicated to a single customer, which is required for licensing compliance with certain software (e.g., Windows Server, SQL Server) that is licensed per-socket or per-core. This meets the requirement for dedicated hardware.

Answer

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Answer

Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances

Answer

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

Question 9

A company is migrating a large-scale batch processing system from on-premises to AWS. The system runs millions of short-lived jobs each day. The company wants to minimize operational overhead and cost. Which AWS compute service should the company use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Batch. AWS Batch is specifically designed for batch computing workloads, handling millions of short-lived jobs efficiently by automatically provisioning compute resources and scaling based on job demand. It integrates with Spot Instances to reduce costs. Option A is wrong because EC2 with Spot Fleet requires manual management of instances and scaling, increasing operational overhead. Option B is wrong because ECS with Fargate is optimized for containerized applications, but AWS Batch provides more specialized features for batch job scheduling and cost optimization. Option C is wrong because Lambda has a maximum execution timeout of 15 minutes and is intended for short, event-driven functions, not suitable for batch processing.

Answer

Amazon EC2 with Spot Fleet

Answer

Amazon ECS with AWS Fargate

Answer

AWS Lambda

Question 10

A company is modernizing a legacy application by refactoring it into microservices. The application uses a monolithic database. The company wants to adopt a microservices architecture with independent data stores. What pattern should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Database per Service. The Database per Service pattern ensures that each microservice owns its own data, promoting loose coupling and allowing independent scaling and technology choices. Option A is incorrect because a data lake with Amazon S3 is designed for analytics and large-scale storage, not for transactional microservices data stores. Option B is incorrect because a centralized database with an API layer still creates a single point of coupling and does not give each service its own data store. Option D is incorrect because a shared database with read replicas still uses a single database schema, which tightly couples the services.

Answer

Data lake with Amazon S3

Answer

Centralized database with an API layer

Answer

Shared database with read replicas

Question 11

A company is migrating a legacy application that uses a proprietary binary protocol for communication. The application communicates over TCP/IP. The company wants to modernize the communication layer to use a RESTful API. Which TWO approaches should the company consider?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon API Gateway and AWS Lambda to create a REST API that translates requests to the legacy protocol.. Option B is correct because Amazon API Gateway can expose a RESTful API endpoint while AWS Lambda functions act as the integration layer that translates incoming HTTP/JSON requests into the legacy proprietary binary protocol, allowing the legacy application to remain unchanged behind the modernization facade. Option D is correct because refactoring the application itself to natively speak HTTP lets it be fronted directly by Amazon API Gateway as a REST API, eliminating the need for protocol translation and providing a fully RESTful communication layer. Option A is not appropriate because Amazon MQ is a managed message broker for protocols such as JMS, AMQP, MQTT, OpenWire, and STOMP, not a REST API or binary-to-HTTP translator. Option C is incorrect because AWS App Mesh is a service mesh for managing and observing service-to-service traffic (typically HTTP/gRPC/TCP), not a protocol conversion tool that turns a proprietary binary protocol into HTTP. Option E is incorrect because Amazon CloudFront is a CDN that caches and accelerates content delivery; it does not modernize or translate a proprietary binary protocol into REST.

Answer

Replace the binary protocol with Amazon MQ.

Answer

Use AWS App Mesh to convert the binary protocol to HTTP.

Answer

Use Amazon CloudFront to cache the RESTful endpoints.

Question 12

A company is migrating a critical database server to Amazon EC2. The root volume (EBS) is configured with DeleteOnTermination=false. After migration, the company needs to ensure that if the EC2 instance fails, a new instance can be quickly launched using the same data. The company takes regular snapshots of the volume. Which statement is correct regarding the root volume's behavior?

Accepted Answer

The root volume will persist after instance termination and can be attached to another instance.. When DeleteOnTermination is set to false, the root volume persists after the EC2 instance is terminated. This allows the volume to be attached to another instance, enabling quick recovery. Option A is incorrect because the root volume can be used as a boot volume for a new instance when attached. Option B is incorrect because the volume is not automatically deleted; deletion only occurs when DeleteOnTermination is true. Option D is incorrect because snapshots are independent of the DeleteOnTermination setting and are not automatically deleted upon instance termination.

Answer

The root volume cannot be used as a boot volume for a new instance.

Answer

The root volume will be automatically deleted when the instance is terminated.

Answer

Snapshots of the volume will be automatically deleted when the instance is terminated.

Question 13

A company is migrating a legacy on-premises application to AWS. The application uses a shared file system for user home directories. Which AWS service should the company use to minimize changes to the application while providing scalable, highly available file storage?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EFS. (Amazon EFS) is correct because it provides a scalable, fully managed NFS file system that can be mounted by multiple EC2 instances, minimizing application changes. Option A (FSx for Lustre) is for high-performance computing, not general file sharing. Option B (EBS) is block storage attached to a single instance. Option C (S3) is object storage, not a file system.

Answer

Amazon FSx for Lustre

Answer

Amazon EBS

Answer

Amazon S3

Question 14

An organization is planning to migrate a large number of on-premises virtual machines to AWS. The migration must be automated and support replication of live workloads with minimal downtime. Which AWS service is best suited for this task?

Accepted Answer

AWS Application Migration Service (MGN). (AWS Application Migration Service) is correct as it automates lift-and-shift migration with continuous replication and cutover. Option A (AWS DataSync) is for data transfer, not live VM replication. Option C (AWS Server Migration Service) is legacy and less capable. Option D (AWS Database Migration Service) is for databases, not general VM migration.

Answer

AWS DataSync

Answer

AWS Server Migration Service (SMS)

Answer

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)

Question 15

A company is migrating a monolithic application to AWS and wants to modernize it into microservices. The application currently uses a single relational database. Which migration strategy is most appropriate to minimize risk while starting the modernization process?

Accepted Answer

Incremental migration using the Strangler Fig pattern. The Strangler Fig pattern (Option A) is the most appropriate strategy because it allows incremental replacement of monolithic components with microservices, reducing the risk associated with a full rewrite or big bang migration. Option B (big bang migration to containers) is risky as it requires simultaneous migration of all components. Option C (replatform to Amazon RDS) only changes the database platform without addressing application architecture. Option D (rehost using VM Import/Export) simply lifts and shifts the monolith without modernization.

Answer

Big bang migration of the entire application to containers

Answer

Replatform to Amazon RDS for MySQL

Answer

Rehost the application using AWS VM Import/Export