SAP-C02 Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization — Timed 20 Questions

Question 1

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?

20 minute time limit — choose an answer to begin.

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Global Accelerator to gradually shift traffic, and use Amazon ElastiCache for Redis to centralize session state. 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 2

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 3

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).. 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 4

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. While AWS DMS itself does not create replication slots on the target Aurora instance, multiple DMS tasks or other replication processes can create slots on the target. Aurora PostgreSQL has a default limit of 1 slot for Aurora Serverless v1 or a configurable limit for provisioned instances. Exceeding this limit can cause resource contention and make the instance unresponsive during ongoing replication.

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 5

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.. 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 6

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.. 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 7

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.. 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 8

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.. 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 9

Match each AWS compute service to its use case.

Accepted Answer

Amazon EC2: Full control over virtual servers in the cloud, including OS and software.. The correct matches are: EC2 for full control over virtual servers, Lambda for serverless event-driven code, and ECS for Docker containers. Common confusions include mixing up serverless features with EC2.

Answer

Amazon EC2: Run code without provisioning or managing servers, event-driven execution.

Question 10

Match each AWS networking concept to its definition.

Accepted Answer

VPC: A virtual network dedicated to your AWS account.. A VPC is a logically isolated virtual network. Subnets are subdivisions of the VPC. An Internet Gateway provides internet access to public subnets, while a NAT Gateway provides outbound internet access to private subnets. Security Groups control instance-level traffic.

Answer

VPC: A service that provides a dedicated physical network for your account.

Answer

Internet Gateway: Allows instances in a private subnet to access the internet.

Question 11

A company is migrating a critical workload to AWS and needs to ensure business continuity. The workload runs on a single EC2 instance with a 500 GB EBS volume. The company requires a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 2 hours and a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes. Which solution meets these requirements with the least operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon EBS snapshots with a 15-minute frequency and automate recovery with AWS Backup.. AWS Backup with EBS snapshots taken every 15 minutes meets the 15-minute RPO, and restoring the volume plus relaunching the instance can be completed well within the 2-hour RTO. AWS Backup provides a managed, policy-driven snapshot schedule with vaulting and lifecycle rules, which minimizes operational overhead compared to custom scripting. This is the least-overhead solution that satisfies both RPO and RTO.

Answer

Create an AMI of the instance every 15 minutes and launch a new instance from the latest AMI in case of failure.

Answer

Deploy the workload on Amazon RDS Multi-AZ and enable automatic failover.

Answer

Use AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery to continuously replicate the EC2 instance to another Region.

Question 12

A company is migrating a legacy .NET application to AWS. The application uses Windows authentication and integrates with on-premises Active Directory. The company wants to use AWS Managed Microsoft AD to reduce administrative overhead. However, after migration, the application fails to authenticate users. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The application is using NTLM authentication, which is not supported by AWS Managed Microsoft AD without a trust relationship.. AWS Managed Microsoft AD is a true Microsoft AD running on AWS-managed Windows Server domain controllers, but it does not natively support NTLM authentication for resources outside its own domain unless a trust relationship (forest or external) is established with the on-premises AD. The legacy .NET application likely relies on NTLM (common in older Windows authentication stacks), and without a trust, the managed AD cannot validate NTLM credentials from the on-premises domain. Therefore, the most likely cause is the missing trust relationship required for NTLM authentication.

Answer

The security group for the application servers does not allow inbound traffic on port 389.

Answer

AWS Managed Microsoft AD does not support LDAP queries.

Answer

The application is not configured to use the correct DNS servers for the AWS Managed Microsoft AD domain.

Question 13

A company is migrating a large-scale data warehouse from on-premises to Amazon Redshift. The current on-premises solution uses a proprietary columnar storage format. The company needs to minimize data transformation effort. Which approach should the company take?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Glue to convert the proprietary format to Apache Parquet and load into Amazon Redshift.. AWS Glue can crawl the proprietary columnar storage format and convert it to Apache Parquet, a columnar format efficiently loaded into Amazon Redshift via COPY from S3, minimizing data transformation effort. Option A is incorrect because the COPY command cannot directly load from on-premises storage; data must first be staged in Amazon S3 in a supported format. Option C is incorrect because AWS DMS is designed for migrating relational databases, not proprietary file formats. Option D is incorrect because Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose is for streaming real-time data, not batch migration of existing large-scale data.

Answer

Use the Amazon Redshift COPY command to load data directly from the on-premises storage.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to migrate the data directly to Redshift.

Answer

Use Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose to stream the data to Redshift.

Question 14

A company is migrating a legacy CRM application to AWS. The application uses a proprietary database that is not supported by Amazon RDS. The company wants to minimize licensing costs. The current on-premises deployment uses a single server. Which migration strategy should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Rehost the application on Amazon EC2 and install the same proprietary database on an EC2 instance.. Rehosting (lift-and-shift) the application on EC2 with the same proprietary database minimizes licensing costs by using existing licenses, and avoids the need to refactor or replace the database. Option B is wrong because replacing the database with a SaaS alternative may increase costs and complexity. Option C is wrong because refactoring to use a different database engine would require significant application changes and may incur new licensing costs. Option D is wrong because DMS cannot migrate to a proprietary database unsupported by RDS, and RDS does not support the proprietary database.

Answer

Rehost the application, but replace the database with a SaaS alternative.

Answer

Refactor the application to use a different database engine that is supported by Amazon RDS.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to migrate the database to Amazon RDS.

Question 15

A company is migrating a legacy application to AWS and needs to ensure that the application can access on-premises resources securely. The company has established an AWS Direct Connect connection. Which AWS service should the company use to route traffic between the VPC and the on-premises network?

Accepted Answer

Virtual Private Gateway (VGW).. A Virtual Private Gateway (VGW) is the AWS-side anchor for a Site-to-Site VPN or Direct Connect (via a Virtual Interface) that terminates into a VPC, enabling private routing between the VPC and on-premises networks. When Direct Connect is used with a private VIF, traffic is routed through the VGW attached to the VPC. This is the canonical AWS answer for connecting a single VPC to on-premises over dedicated connectivity.

Answer

VPC Peering.

Answer

Internet Gateway (IGW).

Answer

AWS Transit Gateway.

Question 16

A company is migrating a legacy application that uses hard-coded IP addresses for database connections. The company wants to refactor the application to use a more resilient architecture in AWS. Which THREE steps should the company take to modernize the database connectivity? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon RDS read replicas to offload read traffic and improve resilience.. Option D is correct because migrating to Amazon RDS and using the RDS endpoint DNS name replaces hard-coded IP addresses with a managed DNS name that automatically resolves to the current primary instance, enabling failover without application changes. Option E is correct because externalizing the endpoint into an environment variable or configuration file decouples connection details from application code, so the endpoint can be updated without recompiling or redeploying the application. Option B is correct because RDS read replicas offload read traffic from the primary instance, improving performance and resilience for read-heavy legacy workloads. Option A is not selected because Multi-AZ failover, while valuable for availability, does not by itself modernize hard-coded IP-based connectivity. Option C is not selected because Elastic IP addresses are for EC2 instances, not RDS, and RDS endpoints already provide stable DNS-based connectivity.

Answer

Enable Multi-AZ deployment for the RDS instance to automatically failover.

Answer

Assign an Elastic IP address to the RDS instance for consistent connectivity.

Question 17

A company is migrating a batch processing workload to AWS. The workload reads input files from an on-premises NFS server, processes them, and writes output files. The company wants to use AWS managed services and minimize operational overhead. Which TWO AWS services should the company use to replace the on-premises NFS server? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

AWS DataSync to transfer files from on-premises to Amazon EFS.. Option B (AWS DataSync to transfer files from on-premises to Amazon EFS) is correct because DataSync is a managed data-transfer service that supports NFS/SMB sources and can move files directly into Amazon EFS, eliminating the need to maintain an on-premises NFS server while minimizing operational overhead. Option E (Amazon EFS) is correct because EFS is a fully managed, elastic NFSv4 file system that the batch workload can mount concurrently from multiple compute instances, providing the shared POSIX file access the workload requires. Together, DataSync handles the migration/ingestion of existing files and EFS serves as the managed NFS replacement for ongoing reads and writes. Option A is not marked correct because S3 File Gateway presents an SMB/NFS interface backed by Amazon S3 rather than a true managed NFS file system, and the question asks for services to replace the NFS server itself. Option C is not marked correct because AWS Storage Gateway File Gateway is a hybrid gateway that still requires a gateway appliance to be deployed and managed, which does not minimize operational overhead as fully as EFS. Option D is not marked correct because Amazon EBS volumes are block storage attached to a single EC2 instance (or Multi-Attach within one AZ) and shared snapshots do not provide a live shared NFS file system.

Answer

Amazon S3 with S3 File Gateway.

Answer

AWS Storage Gateway File Gateway.

Answer

Amazon EBS with a shared snapshot.

Question 18

Refer to the exhibit. A company has attached this IAM policy to an IAM role used by an application running on an EC2 instance in a VPC with CIDR 10.0.0.0/16. The application is unable to read objects from the S3 bucket. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The condition key aws:SourceIp uses the private IP of the instance, but S3 sees the public IP.. The IAM policy uses the `aws:SourceIp` condition key with the private IP address of the EC2 instance (10.0.0.x). However, when the instance accesses S3, the request originates from the instance's public IP address (or the NAT gateway's public IP). Since the `aws:SourceIp` condition checks the source IP of the request, and it expects the private IP, the condition fails and denies access to the S3 bucket. Therefore, the most likely cause is that the condition key uses the private IP but S3 sees the public IP (option C). Option A is incorrect because the instance has an IAM role attached (implied by the policy being attached to the role). Option B is incorrect because the `s3:GetObject` action is allowed, and `s3:ListBucket` is not required to read objects if the bucket policy allows it. Option D is incorrect because the bucket policy is not mentioned and the issue lies with the IAM policy condition.

Answer

The EC2 instance does not have an IAM instance profile.

Answer

The policy does not allow the s3:ListBucket action.

Answer

The S3 bucket policy denies access.

Question 19

Refer to the exhibit. A company is using AWS CloudFormation to migrate a serverless application. The stack creation failed. Based on the stack events, what is the root cause of the failure?

Accepted Answer

The AWS Lambda runtime specified in the template is not supported in the us-east-1 region.. The stack events show that the AWS::Lambda::Function resource failed with the error 'Runtime python3.13 is not supported in us-east-1'. This indicates that the specified Lambda runtime version is not available in the region where the stack is being deployed. CloudFormation validates the runtime against the region's supported list, and since python3.13 is not yet available in us-east-1, the resource creation fails. The correct answer is B because it directly matches the error message and the root cause.

Answer

The CloudFormation template has a syntax error.

Answer

The IAM role for the Lambda function does not have sufficient permissions.

Answer

The Lambda function code exceeds the maximum size limit.

Question 20

Refer to the exhibit. A company is using an S3 bucket to store migration logs. The company has set a lifecycle policy to transition objects to Glacier after 30 days and expire them after 365 days. After 45 days, the company notices that the objects are still in S3 Standard. What is the most likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The objects were created after the lifecycle policy was applied, so they have not reached 30 days of age yet.. The most likely reason is that the objects were created after the lifecycle policy was applied, so they have not reached 30 days of age yet. S3 Lifecycle policies transition objects based on their creation date. If the objects were uploaded after the policy was created, the 30-day clock starts from their creation date, not from when the policy was applied. Therefore, after 45 days from policy application, if the objects were created, say, 20 days after the policy, they would only be 25 days old and not yet transitioned.

Answer

The lifecycle policy has a filter that excludes these objects.

Answer

The lifecycle policy is not enabled for the bucket.

Answer

The S3 bucket versioning is disabled, so lifecycle rules do not apply.