SAP-C02 Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization Practice Test 8 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is migrating a critical application to AWS using the 7 Rs migration strategy. The application has a monolithic architecture and runs on a single large on-premises server. The business wants to reduce operational overhead but cannot afford any downtime. Which strategy should the solutions architect recommend?

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

Accepted Answer

Rehost the application using AWS Application Migration Service. Rehosting with AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) lifts and shifts the monolithic application to AWS with minimal changes and near-zero downtime through continuous block-level replication and a short cutover window. It reduces operational overhead by moving off physical hardware while preserving the application architecture, and it meets the no-downtime constraint because replication is ongoing until the final cutover. This is the recommended strategy when downtime is unacceptable and re-architecture is not feasible.

Answer

Retire the application and replace it with a SaaS solution

Answer

Replatform the application to use AWS managed services

Answer

Refactor / Re-architect the application into microservices

Question 2

A company has a legacy application that runs on Windows Server 2008 R2 on-premises. The application is no longer supported by the vendor, but the company still needs to run it for compliance reasons. They are migrating to AWS and want to minimize changes. What should the solutions architect recommend?

Accepted Answer

Use an Amazon EC2 instance with a Windows Server 2008 R2 BYOL AMI. Using an EC2 instance with a Windows Server 2008 R2 BYOL AMI allows the company to run the unsupported legacy application with minimal changes, satisfying compliance requirements. BYOL lets them use their existing licenses, and no application refactoring is needed.

Answer

Refactor the application to run on a supported Windows Server version

Answer

Upgrade to Windows Server 2019 and use AWS License Manager

Answer

Replace the application with a SaaS alternative

Question 3

A company is migrating a batch processing workload to AWS. The workload runs daily on a single on-premises server and takes 6 hours to complete. The company wants to reduce processing time and cost. Which approach should the solutions architect recommend?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Batch to run the workload in parallel on multiple compute resources. AWS Batch is designed to run batch workloads across a managed compute environment and can split the job into parallel tasks, reducing the 6-hour runtime and using spot or on-demand instances cost-effectively. It eliminates the need to manage servers and scales compute to the workload. This directly addresses both reduced processing time and reduced cost.

Answer

Use AWS Lambda with a 6-hour timeout

Answer

Use AWS Step Functions to orchestrate the workload sequentially

Answer

Use a single larger EC2 instance with more vCPUs

Question 4

A company is migrating an on-premises data center to AWS. The company has a large amount of data (50 TB) that needs to be transferred quickly. The internet connection is limited to 100 Mbps. Which TWO methods should the solutions architect consider for the initial data transfer? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Snowball Edge devices to ship the data. Option B is correct because AWS Snowball Edge is a petabyte-scale physical data transport device designed for exactly this scenario: moving large datasets (50 TB) when the network link is too slow, since shipping the device avoids the 100 Mbps bottleneck entirely. Option C is correct because AWS Direct Connect provides a dedicated, high-bandwidth private network connection from on-premises to AWS, which can transfer 50 TB far faster and more reliably than the limited 100 Mbps internet link. Option A is not appropriate because a VPN over the existing 100 Mbps internet connection would still be constrained by that same slow bandwidth, and rsync offers no acceleration. Option D is not suitable because AWS DataSync also transfers over the internet (or Direct Connect) and would be throttled by the 100 Mbps link. Option E is not suitable because S3 Transfer Acceleration speeds up transfers over the public internet using edge locations, but it cannot overcome the fundamental 100 Mbps uplink limitation for a 50 TB dataset.

Answer

Use a VPN connection and rsync

Answer

Use AWS DataSync to transfer data over the internet

Answer

Use Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration

Question 5

Refer to the exhibit. A company is migrating an application to AWS and has attached the IAM policy shown to an IAM role. The application runs on an EC2 instance and needs to upload files to an S3 bucket. However, the uploads are failing with an access denied error. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The IAM policy restricts access based on source IP, but the EC2 instance's public IP is not in the allowed range. The IAM policy attached to the role includes a Condition element that restricts s3:PutObject access based on the aws:SourceIp condition key. When an EC2 instance makes a request to S3, the request originates from the instance's private IP (or the NAT gateway's public IP if in a private subnet), not necessarily the public IP listed in the policy. Since the source IP does not match the allowed range, the condition evaluates to false and access is denied. This is the most likely cause of the access denied error.

Answer

The IAM policy does not allow the s3:PutObject action

Answer

The IAM policy uses an incorrect resource ARN

Answer

The S3 bucket policy denies access from the instance

Question 6

Refer to the exhibit. A company is deploying a CloudFormation stack for a web application. The stack creation fails with the error 'The parameter DBPassword is not defined'. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The DBPassword parameter is not defined in the Parameters section. The error 'The parameter DBPassword is not defined' occurs when CloudFormation encounters a reference to a parameter (e.g., in the Resources or Outputs section) that does not exist in the template's Parameters section. CloudFormation validates all references during stack creation, and if a parameter is used but not declared, it fails immediately with this exact message. Therefore, the most likely cause is that DBPassword is missing from the Parameters section entirely.

Answer

The DBPassword parameter is misspelled in the template

Answer

The DBPassword parameter is defined but used in a condition

Answer

The DBPassword parameter is defined but the value is too short

Question 7

A company is migrating a monolithic application to AWS. The application currently runs on a single on-premises server and uses a local MySQL database. To reduce migration risk, the company wants to minimize application code changes. Which AWS service should the company use to migrate the database with minimal application modification?

Accepted Answer

AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS). AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) is the correct choice because it supports homogeneous migrations of MySQL databases with minimal application changes. DMS can migrate data from an on-premises MySQL database to Amazon RDS for MySQL or Amazon Aurora while keeping the application largely unchanged. Option A (Amazon RDS for MySQL) is not a migration service; it is the target database service that requires manual import or use of DMS. Option C (AWS Snowball) is designed for large-scale offline data transfers, not for live database migrations. Option D (Amazon S3) is an object storage service and cannot be used to migrate a relational database directly.

Answer

Amazon RDS for MySQL

Answer

AWS Snowball

Answer

Amazon S3

Question 8

A company is migrating a legacy .NET application to AWS. The application uses Windows authentication and stores session state in-memory. The company wants to minimize code changes and use AWS managed services. Which combination of AWS services should the company use to modernize the application's authentication and session management?

Accepted Answer

AWS Managed Microsoft AD and Amazon ElastiCache for Redis. AWS Managed Microsoft AD provides a managed Active Directory in AWS that supports Windows authentication, allowing the legacy .NET application to authenticate without code changes. Amazon ElastiCache for Redis is a managed in-memory data store that can externalize session state, removing the in-memory dependency and enabling horizontal scaling. Together they modernize authentication and session management with minimal code changes.

Answer

AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory (AD Connector) and Amazon RDS

Answer

Amazon Cognito and Amazon DynamoDB

Answer

AWS IAM and Amazon DynamoDB

Question 9

A company is migrating a multi-tier application to AWS. The application has a web tier, application tier, and database tier. The company wants to use AWS services to improve scalability and reduce costs. Currently, the on-premises infrastructure is underutilized. What is the most cost-effective migration strategy?

Accepted Answer

Rehost (lift-and-shift) to Amazon EC2 using AWS Application Migration Service, then right-size instances and purchase Reserved Instances.. The most cost-effective strategy for a migration with underutilized on-premises infrastructure is to lift-and-shift to EC2, right-size the instances to match actual usage, and purchase Reserved Instances to save costs. This approach minimizes changes and leverages AWS discounts. Options A and B involve rearchitecting or replatforming which are more costly and time-consuming. Option D does not consider right-sizing and leads to overspending.

Answer

Refactor the application to run on containers using Amazon EKS with Fargate.

Answer

Replatform the web tier to AWS Elastic Beanstalk and the database to Amazon RDS.

Answer

Purchase compute-heavy EC2 instances to handle peak loads and use On-Demand pricing.

Question 10

A company is migrating a legacy application to AWS. The application uses a proprietary database that is not supported by Amazon RDS. The company wants to minimize changes and use a managed service. Which TWO options should the company consider? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Run the database on Amazon EC2 with Amazon EBS volumes.. Option C is correct because running the proprietary database on Amazon EC2 with Amazon EBS volumes lets the company keep the existing database engine unchanged while still leveraging AWS infrastructure, and EBS provides durable, high-performance block storage suitable for database workloads. Option E is correct because an AWS Marketplace third-party solution can provide a fully managed service for the proprietary database, satisfying the requirement to minimize changes while using a managed offering. Option A is incorrect because Amazon RDS does not support custom database engines; it only supports specific engines such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, and SQL Server. Option B is incorrect because Amazon S3 with S3 Select is an object storage query feature, not a database platform, and cannot run a proprietary database. Option D is incorrect because converting to Amazon DynamoDB would require significant application and schema changes, contradicting the goal of minimizing changes.

Answer

Use Amazon RDS with a custom engine.

Answer

Migrate the database to Amazon S3 and use S3 Select for queries.

Answer

Convert the database to Amazon DynamoDB.

Question 11

A company is migrating a web application to AWS. The application consists of a stateless web tier, a stateful application tier, and a MySQL database. The company wants to use AWS managed services to improve scalability and reduce operational overhead. Which THREE services should the company use? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Application Load Balancer. Option C (Application Load Balancer) is correct because an ALB operates at Layer 7 to distribute HTTP/HTTPS traffic across the stateless web tier, enabling health checks and integration with Auto Scaling for scalability. Option D (Amazon ElastiCache for Redis) is correct because it is a managed in-memory caching service that can offload session state and database reads for the stateful application tier, reducing operational overhead while improving performance. Option E (Amazon RDS for MySQL) is correct because it is a managed relational database service that supports MySQL, providing automated backups, patching, Multi-AZ failover, and read replicas for the existing MySQL database. Option A (Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling) is not among the marked answers because, while it scales EC2 instances, it is not a managed service in the same sense and the question asks for managed services to reduce operational overhead. Option B (Amazon S3) is not marked because object storage does not replace the MySQL relational database or the application tier's stateful requirements in this scenario.

Answer

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling

Answer

Amazon S3

Question 12

A company is migrating a batch processing workload to AWS. The workload runs on a schedule and processes large files stored on a network file system. The company wants to use serverless services. Which TWO services should the company use? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Amazon S3. Amazon S3 [CORRECT] is the right choice for storing the large files because it is a fully managed, serverless object storage service that scales elastically and integrates natively with event-driven and batch processing pipelines. AWS Lambda [CORRECT] is also correct because it is a serverless compute service that can run the batch processing code on a schedule (via Amazon EventBridge Scheduler or cron triggers) without provisioning or managing servers. Together, S3 for durable file storage and Lambda for scheduled serverless processing satisfy the requirement to use serverless services for this batch workload. Amazon EMR is not serverless in the traditional sense (it provisions clusters of EC2 instances, though EMR Serverless exists, the option as stated is cluster-based) and is better suited for big data frameworks like Spark/Hadoop rather than a simple scheduled file-processing job. Amazon EC2 is explicitly not serverless since it requires managing virtual servers, and Amazon EFS, while a serverless-capable file system, is a storage service that does not provide the compute needed to process the files.

Answer

Amazon EMR

Answer

Amazon EC2

Answer

Amazon EFS

Question 13

A company is migrating an application that uses an S3 bucket to store user uploads. The IAM policy above is attached to the application's IAM role. The application is experiencing permission errors when trying to list objects in the bucket. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The policy allows ListBucket but the application is trying to list objects in a prefix that requires additional permissions.. The most likely cause is that the policy allows s3:ListBucket but the application is trying to list objects in a prefix that requires additional permissions. In S3, the s3:ListBucket permission on the bucket ARN allows listing the bucket's contents, but if the application uses a prefix (e.g., listing objects under a specific folder), it may require s3:ListBucket with a condition on the prefix, or the policy may not grant access to that prefix. The resource ARN for s3:ListBucket should be the bucket itself (arn:aws:s3:::example-bucket), not the bucket with /*.

Answer

The resource ARN for the s3:ListBucket action is incorrect. It should be arn:aws:s3:::example-bucket/*.

Answer

The policy is missing the s3:GetObject action on the bucket itself.

Answer

The policy needs a condition to restrict access to specific IP addresses.

Question 14

A company is migrating a web application to AWS. The application runs on EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. The exhibit shows the current running instances. The company wants to ensure high availability across multiple Availability Zones. Which action should the company take?

Accepted Answer

Change the m5.xlarge instance in us-east-1c to an m5.large in us-east-1c or move it to another AZ.. The current instance distribution shows an m5.large in us-east-1b (or similar) and an m5.xlarge in us-east-1c, which is inconsistent. To ensure high availability across multiple Availability Zones, the company should either change the m5.xlarge to an m5.large to match instance types, or move it to a different AZ to better distribute instances. This avoids a single point of failure and ensures balanced capacity. Option A is incorrect because adding more instances to us-east-1a does not improve AZ diversity. Option C is incorrect because terminating the m5.xlarge and launching an m5.large in the same AZ does not change the AZ distribution. Option D is incorrect because placing all instances in a single AZ eliminates high availability.

Answer

Launch additional m5.large instances in us-east-1a.

Answer

Terminate the m5.xlarge instance in us-east-1c and launch an m5.large in the same AZ.

Answer

Place all instances in a single AZ and use an Auto Scaling group.

Question 15

A company is setting up AWS DMS to migrate a database. The trust policy above is attached to the IAM role used by DMS. When testing the connection, DMS reports an authentication error. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The trust policy is correct, but the permissions policy attached to the role does not allow DMS to perform the necessary actions on the source and target databases.. The trust policy is correctly configured to allow the DMS service principal (dms.amazonaws.com) to assume the role, as required. However, an authentication error during connection testing typically indicates that DMS cannot successfully assume the role or that the assumed role lacks the necessary permissions to interact with the source or target databases. Since the trust policy is correct, the most likely cause is that the permissions policy attached to the role does not grant DMS the required actions (e.g., dms:TestConnection, dms:CreateEndpoint) on the database resources. Option D correctly identifies this as the issue.

Answer

The trust policy is missing a condition for the DMS replication instance.

Answer

The service principal should be dms.amazonaws.com, but it is misspelled.

Answer

The trust policy is missing a region-specific condition.