SAP-C02 Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization Practice Test 6 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is migrating a legacy monolithic e-commerce platform to AWS. The platform consists of a Java-based web application, an Oracle database, and a file server storing product images. The company's migration requirements are: (1) minimize downtime during cutover, (2) reduce operational overhead for the database, (3) enable future migration to microservices. The current on-premises environment experiences high I/O latency for the file server. The company has already set up a VPN connection to AWS and has installed the AWS Application Discovery Service agent on all servers. During the assessment, you discover that the Oracle database is 2 TB and the file server holds 5 TB of images. The web application is tightly coupled with the database and uses stored procedures. You need to design the migration approach. Which combination of actions should be taken?

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

Accepted Answer

Use AWS DMS with ongoing replication to Amazon RDS for Oracle. Use S3 Transfer Acceleration to upload files to Amazon S3. Then cut over.. AWS DMS with ongoing replication allows continuous data replication from the Oracle database to Amazon RDS for Oracle, minimizing downtime during cutover. S3 Transfer Acceleration speeds up uploads of large files (5 TB of images) to Amazon S3 by using AWS edge locations, reducing transfer time. This combination meets the requirements: minimal downtime, reduced operational overhead (RDS manages the database), and enables future microservices migration (S3 for images).

Answer

Use AWS Snowball Edge to transfer the database and files. After data is loaded, cut over DNS to AWS.

Answer

Use AWS DMS for continuous replication of the database to Amazon RDS for Oracle. Use AWS DataSync to copy files to Amazon EFS. Then cut over.

Answer

Refactor the application into microservices using Amazon ECS. Use Amazon RDS for Oracle and Amazon S3 for images. Then cut over gradually.

Question 2

A small business is migrating its on-premises infrastructure to AWS. The current environment consists of two VMs running a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and a separate file server. The business has limited IT staff and wants to minimize operational overhead. They also want to ensure high availability for the web application. The company has a modest budget and is looking for a cost-effective solution. You need to design the migration. Which approach should be taken?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Elastic Beanstalk to deploy the web application. Use Amazon RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ for the database. Use S3 for file storage.. AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a PaaS offering that automates deployment and scaling of web applications, reducing operational overhead. Using RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ provides high availability for the database, and S3 offers durable, scalable file storage. This combination meets the requirements for high availability, minimal management, and cost-effectiveness for a small business.

Answer

Migrate the VMs to two EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an ALB. Use RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ.

Answer

Use Amazon Lightsail to host the entire application on a single instance with a managed database.

Answer

Containerize the application and run on Amazon ECS with Fargate. Use Amazon RDS for MySQL.

Question 3

A company is migrating a critical application to AWS and must ensure business continuity with a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 1 hour and a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes. The application runs on a single on-premises server with a 500 GB disk. The current data changes at a rate of 10 MB per minute. Which solution will meet the RTO and RPO requirements with the least operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN) to replicate the server continuously and automate cutover.. AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN) continuously replicates data with near-zero RPO and supports automated testing and cutover. It can achieve an RTO of less than 1 hour for a single server. AWS DMS is for database migration, not full server. AWS Backup has a minimum RPO of 1 hour for continuous backups. Manual snapshots cannot achieve 15-minute RPO due to the rate of change and manual intervention.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) to replicate the database continuously.

Answer

Use AWS DataSync to replicate the server every 15 minutes to an EBS volume.

Answer

Take hourly snapshots of the server using AWS Backup and restore in a new EC2 instance.

Question 4

A company is migrating a multi-tier web application to AWS. The application consists of a stateless web tier and a stateful application tier that uses sticky sessions. The company wants to reduce operational overhead and improve elasticity. Which architecture should the solutions architect recommend?

Accepted Answer

Use an Application Load Balancer with sticky sessions for the web tier. Store session data in Amazon ElastiCache.. An Application Load Balancer with sticky sessions preserves session affinity for the stateful tier, while offloading session state to ElastiCache (Redis or Memcached) makes the web tier stateless and horizontally scalable. This combination reduces operational overhead because ElastiCache is a managed service and ALB is a managed Layer 7 load balancer. It also improves elasticity since new instances can join without losing session context.

Answer

Use Amazon CloudFront with an origin load balancer and store session data in the web tier's local storage.

Answer

Use an Application Load Balancer with cross-zone load balancing and store session data in Amazon DynamoDB.

Answer

Use a Network Load Balancer with instance targets and Amazon EFS to share session data.

Question 5

A company is migrating a legacy .NET application to AWS. The application currently uses Windows Authentication and a SQL Server database. The company wants to reduce licensing costs and use managed services where possible. The migration should minimize code changes. Which combination of services meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

AWS Elastic Beanstalk for the .NET application, Amazon RDS for SQL Server, and AWS Managed Microsoft AD. AWS Elastic Beanstalk supports .NET applications with minimal code changes, and Amazon RDS for SQL Server provides a managed database that supports Windows Authentication when integrated with AWS Managed Microsoft AD. This combination reduces licensing overhead compared to self-managed EC2 while preserving the existing authentication model. The other options either require significant code changes, do not support Windows Authentication natively, or do not reduce licensing costs as effectively.

Answer

Amazon EC2 instances with SQL Server installed and AWS Directory Service for AD

Answer

AWS Lambda for the application logic and Amazon DynamoDB for the database

Answer

Amazon ECS with Windows containers, Amazon RDS for SQL Server, and AWS SSO

Question 6

A company is planning to migrate 50 TB of data from an on-premises data center to Amazon S3. The on-premises network bandwidth is 100 Mbps. The migration must be completed within 30 days. What is the most cost-effective solution?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Snowball Edge device.. AWS Snowball Edge is a physical device designed for large-scale data transfers (up to petabytes) when network bandwidth is limited. With 100 Mbps, transferring 50 TB over the internet would take approximately 46 days (50 TB * 8 bits/byte * 1e12 / (100e6 * 86400) ≈ 46 days), exceeding the 30-day deadline. Snowball Edge can be shipped, loaded with data, and returned within a week, making it the most cost-effective and timely solution.

Answer

Use AWS Direct Connect to increase bandwidth.

Answer

Use AWS DataSync over the internet.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS).

Question 7

A company is modernizing its infrastructure by moving from EC2 instances to a serverless architecture using AWS Lambda. The application processes images uploaded to Amazon S3. The current EC2-based solution uses a third-party image processing library that is not supported in Lambda's runtime environment. What is the best approach to migrate to serverless while using the same library?

Accepted Answer

Package the library as a Lambda layer and reference it in the function.. AWS Lambda supports custom runtime environments by bundling the library with the deployment package or using Lambda layers. The library can be included as a layer, allowing the Lambda function to use it. AWS Fargate runs containers but is not serverless in the same sense; it adds overhead. Using a different library would require code changes. App Runner is for containerized applications.

Answer

Use AWS Fargate to run the image processing library in a container.

Answer

Rewrite the image processing code to use AWS Rekognition.

Answer

Use AWS App Runner to deploy the existing application as-is.

Question 8

A company is migrating a batch processing workload to AWS. The workload runs nightly and takes approximately 2 hours on a single on-premises server. The company wants to reduce the processing time to under 30 minutes. Which THREE steps should the solutions architect recommend?

Accepted Answer

Split the workload into smaller batches and run them in parallel on multiple EC2 instances.. Option A is correct because splitting the workload into smaller batches and running them in parallel on multiple EC2 instances horizontally scales the processing, so a 2-hour job can finish in under 30 minutes by distributing the work across many workers simultaneously. Option B is correct because moving to a larger, compute-optimized EC2 instance type (e.g., C-family) increases CPU/memory throughput per node, directly reducing the runtime of a CPU-bound batch job that currently runs on a single on-premises server. Option E is correct because AWS Batch with multiple compute environments orchestrates parallel processing, automatically provisioning and scaling the right instance types and queueing jobs so the split batches run concurrently and complete within the 30-minute target. Option C is not correct because EBS io2 volumes only improve storage IOPS and do not address the compute-bound nature of the batch workload or enable parallelism. Option D is not correct because Spot Instances reduce cost but do not by themselves reduce processing time, and they can be interrupted, which is risky for a nightly batch job.

Answer

Use EBS io2 volumes with high IOPS for the instance.

Answer

Use EC2 Spot Instances to reduce cost.

Question 9

An IAM policy is attached to a role used by AWS DMS for a database migration from an RDS MySQL instance to an S3 bucket. The migration fails with an access denied error when writing to S3. Which missing permission is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

s3:PutObject. The policy allows s3:GetObject and s3:ListBucket, but not s3:PutObject, which is required for writing data to S3. The error is about writing, not reading. dms:StartReplicationTask is already allowed. rds:DescribeDBInstances is for reading RDS metadata. kms:Decrypt is only needed for encrypted buckets.

Answer

kms:Decrypt

Answer

rds:DescribeDBInstances

Answer

dms:StartReplicationTask

Question 10

A company is modernizing its application by migrating from a monolithic architecture to microservices on Amazon ECS Fargate. The application uses an on-premises Oracle database, which is being migrated to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL as part of the modernization. The team has refactored the application into several microservices, each with its own database schema in the same Aurora cluster. During load testing, the team notices that one microservice's heavy write operations cause increased latency for other microservices' read queries. The Aurora cluster uses a single writer and multiple readers. The team needs to isolate the write-heavy microservice without changing the application code. What should the solutions architect do?

Accepted Answer

Create a separate Aurora cluster for the write-heavy microservice and point the microservice to that cluster.. The write-heavy microservice is causing contention on the shared Aurora writer instance, which impacts read queries served by replicas due to replication lag and shared storage. Moving that microservice to its own Aurora cluster physically isolates its write workload from the other microservices' schemas. This requires no application code change beyond updating the connection endpoint, satisfying the 'without changing the application code' constraint.

Answer

Use Amazon RDS Proxy to manage database connections.

Answer

Configure Aurora read replicas to offload read queries from the writer.

Answer

Increase the instance size of the Aurora writer to handle the write load.

Question 11

A company is migrating a legacy application to AWS and needs to ensure compliance with data residency requirements. The application stores personally identifiable information (PII) in an on-premises MySQL database. The company wants to encrypt the data at rest and in transit during the migration. The database will be migrated to Amazon RDS for MySQL. The solutions architect must ensure that all data is encrypted end-to-end. Which combination of steps will meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Enable RDS encryption at launch, enforce TLS for connections, and configure the application to use SSL/TLS.. To ensure end-to-end encryption for RDS for MySQL, you must enable RDS encryption at launch (for data at rest) and enforce TLS for connections (for data in transit). Configuring the application to use SSL/TLS ensures that the application connects securely. This combination covers both at-rest and in-transit encryption.

Answer

Use a custom AMI with encrypted EBS volumes, enforce TLS, and use AWS DMS with SSL.

Answer

Enable RDS encryption at launch, use AWS DMS with SSL, and require SSL certificate verification on the RDS endpoint.

Answer

Enable RDS encryption after migration, use AWS DMS with SSL, and set up a VPN connection.

Question 12

A company is migrating a large Oracle database to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. The migration must have minimal downtime and support ongoing replication. Which THREE steps should the company take?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with change data capture (CDC) to replicate ongoing changes.. AWS DMS can perform live migration from Oracle to Aurora PostgreSQL with minimal downtime using change data capture (CDC). Option D is correct because the AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT) is used to convert the Oracle schema to a PostgreSQL-compatible schema before migration. The unlabeled first option is correct because provisioning sufficient compute and storage for the Aurora PostgreSQL instance ensures it can handle the migration load without performance issues. Option B is wrong because AWS SCT is for schema conversion, not data migration. Option C is wrong because converting the entire database first defeats the purpose of using DMS for minimal downtime; DMS handles the data type conversion automatically. Option E is wrong because taking the source offline would cause downtime, which contradicts the requirement for minimal downtime.

Answer

Use AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT) to perform the data migration.

Answer

Convert the Oracle database to PostgreSQL first, then use AWS DMS for a homogeneous migration.

Answer

Take the source Oracle database offline to ensure data consistency during the migration.

Question 13

A company is migrating a 3-tier web application from on-premises to AWS. The application consists of a Linux Apache HTTP server, a Java application server (Tomcat), and a MySQL database. The company wants to use AWS managed services to reduce operational overhead. The migration plan includes using AWS Elastic Beanstalk for the web and application tiers, and Amazon RDS for MySQL for the database. During a test migration, the team notices that the application is experiencing intermittent connection timeouts when the web tier attempts to connect to the application tier. The web and application tiers are deployed in separate Elastic Beanstalk environments, both in the same VPC, same region, and same Availability Zone. The security groups allow traffic from the web tier to the application tier on port 8080. What is the MOST likely cause of the connection timeouts?

Accepted Answer

The web tier is trying to connect directly to the application tier instances, but the application tier's security group does not allow inbound traffic from the web tier's security group.. In Elastic Beanstalk, each environment creates its own security group, and the default security group rules do not automatically allow traffic between separate environments. Even though the team configured a rule allowing port 8080, the rule must reference the web tier's security group as the source, not an IP range or the application tier's own security group. If the rule is missing or incorrectly scoped, the application tier's security group will block inbound connections from the web tier, causing intermittent timeouts as some instances may have the rule and others do not. This is the most likely cause because the scenario explicitly states that both tiers are in the same VPC, region, and AZ, and that security groups allow traffic on port 8080—but the rule may not be correctly applied to the application tier's security group.

Answer

The application tier is configured with an internal Application Load Balancer, but the web tier is unable to resolve the DNS name of the load balancer.

Answer

The web tier and application tier are in different Availability Zones, causing increased latency and timeouts.

Answer

The Elastic Beanstalk environment's health check URL is misconfigured, causing the instances to be marked as unhealthy and removed from the load balancer.

Question 14

A company is migrating a large-scale batch processing system from on-premises to AWS. The system processes hundreds of thousands of files daily, each file being a few MB in size. The files are received via SFTP and need to be processed within 4 hours. The company wants to use AWS services to build a fully managed, scalable, and cost-effective solution. The current on-premises system uses a single server with a scheduled task that processes files sequentially. The migration should improve throughput and reduce processing time. Which architecture should the company implement?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Transfer Family for SFTP, store files in Amazon S3, configure an S3 event notification to publish messages to an Amazon SQS queue, and use an Auto Scaling group of EC2 instances to process messages from the queue.. The requirement is a fully managed, scalable, cost-effective solution that improves throughput over sequential processing. Option D uses AWS Transfer Family for SFTP ingestion, S3 for durable storage, S3 event notifications to SQS for decoupling, and an Auto Scaling group of EC2 instances consuming the queue in parallel. This provides horizontal scalability, decouples ingestion from processing, and allows the fleet to scale based on queue depth, processing hundreds of thousands of files within the 4-hour window.

Answer

Use AWS Transfer Family for SFTP, store files in Amazon S3, and use AWS Batch with Fargate launch type to process files in parallel.

Answer

Use AWS Transfer Family for SFTP, store files in Amazon S3, and use AWS Lambda functions triggered by S3 events to process each file.

Answer

Use AWS Transfer Family for SFTP, store files in Amazon S3, and configure a single EC2 instance to poll S3 for new files and process them sequentially.

Question 15

A company is migrating a containerized application from on-premises to AWS. The application runs on Kubernetes. The company wants to use Amazon EKS for orchestration. The migration must support high availability across multiple Availability Zones and integrate with AWS services like IAM, VPC, and CloudWatch. The company needs to minimize the operational overhead of managing the Kubernetes control plane. Which EKS configuration should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Use EKS with managed node groups using a mix of On-Demand and Spot Instances across three Availability Zones.. EKS with managed node groups across three AZs using a mix of On-Demand and Spot Instances provides high availability, reduces control-plane operational overhead (AWS manages it), and integrates natively with IAM, VPC, and CloudWatch. Managed node groups also handle AMI updates and node lifecycle, minimizing ops burden.

Answer

Use EKS with self-managed node groups using On-Demand instances in two Availability Zones.

Answer

Use EKS with a single managed node group using a single instance type in one Availability Zone.

Answer

Use EKS with Fargate launch type for all pods.