SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Test 27 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A startup is designing a data lake on AWS using Amazon S3. They expect to ingest hundreds of terabytes of data from IoT devices daily. Data is in JSON format and will be queried using Amazon Athena. Which combination of actions will optimize query performance and minimize costs?

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

Accepted Answer

Convert data to Parquet, partition by date, and use S3 Intelligent-Tiering.. Converting data to Parquet format provides columnar storage and efficient compression, reducing the amount of data scanned by Athena. Partitioning by date (e.g., year/month/day) aligns with typical query patterns for time-series IoT data, allowing Athena to skip irrelevant partitions and minimize costs. S3 Intelligent-Tiering automatically moves data between access tiers to optimize storage costs without manual intervention. Option A is incorrect because gzip-compressed JSON is not as efficient as Parquet in terms of compression and query performance, and partitioning by device_id would create too many small files (poor partitioning). Option C is incorrect because while Parquet and date partitioning are good, S3 Standard is more expensive for data that may not be accessed frequently after initial queries; Intelligent-Tiering is more cost-effective. Option D is incorrect because S3 Glacier Deep Archive has high retrieval costs and long retrieval times, making it unsuitable for frequent Athena queries, and lack of partitioning leads to full table scans.

Answer

Store data as gzip-compressed JSON in S3, partition by device_id, and use Athena with compression.

Answer

Convert data to Parquet format, partition by year/month/day, and use S3 Standard storage.

Answer

Store data as Parquet in S3 Glacier Deep Archive, unpartitioned, and query with Athena.

Question 2

A company is migrating a monolithic application to a microservices architecture on AWS. They want to decouple the services and ensure that messages between services are processed asynchronously and durably. Which AWS service should they use for this purpose?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS). Amazon SQS (Simple Queue Service) is the correct choice for decoupling microservices with asynchronous, durable message processing. It provides a fully managed message queue that allows services to send, store, and receive messages between software components without losing messages. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams (option A) is designed for real-time streaming of large data, not for point-to-point queue-based messaging. Amazon SNS (option C) is a pub/sub service that pushes messages to subscribers, but it does not provide durable storage or polling capabilities. AWS Step Functions (option D) is used for coordinating complex workflows, not for basic asynchronous messaging.

Answer

Amazon Kinesis Data Streams

Answer

Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)

Answer

AWS Step Functions

Question 3

Which TWO actions improve the security of an Amazon S3 bucket that stores sensitive data?

Accepted Answer

Enable S3 server access logging.. Enabling S3 Block Public Access (Option C) is a critical security control that prevents any public access to the bucket, regardless of bucket policies or object ACLs, effectively eliminating the risk of unintended data exposure. Enabling S3 server access logging (Option B) records all requests made to the bucket, providing an audit trail that can be used to detect unauthorized access attempts, troubleshoot security events, and meet compliance requirements. Both actions directly enhance the security posture of a bucket storing sensitive data.

Answer

Enable CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing).

Answer

Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration.

Answer

Use a bucket policy that denies access to all principals except the root user.

Question 4

Which THREE factors should be considered when designing a global application that requires low-latency access to static content and dynamic API responses?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon CloudFront with multiple origins for static and dynamic content.. Amazon CloudFront provides edge caching for static content and can route dynamic requests to the nearest origin. AWS Global Accelerator improves performance for dynamic content via anycast IP. Multi-Region deployment with Route 53 latency routing reduces latency. VPC peering (A) is for private networking between VPCs, not global content delivery. Direct Connect (C) provides dedicated private connectivity but does not optimize global latency for content delivery.

Answer

Use VPC peering between all Regions to reduce latency.

Answer

Use AWS Direct Connect for global connectivity.

Question 5

Which TWO design patterns help ensure data durability in Amazon S3?

Accepted Answer

Enable Cross-Region Replication (CRR).. Options A and B are correct. Versioning protects against accidental deletion or overwrite, ensuring data durability. Cross-Region Replication (CRR) replicates objects to another region, protecting against region-level failures and enhancing durability. Option C is incorrect because MFA Delete is a security feature that requires multi-factor authentication to delete objects, but it does not increase the number of copies or protect against data loss. Option D is incorrect because S3 Standard-IA is a storage class designed for infrequently accessed data with lower cost, but it has the same durability as S3 Standard (11 nines) and does not provide additional durability. Option E is incorrect because lifecycle policies manage data lifecycle and cost optimization, not durability; transitioning to Glacier does not increase durability.

Answer

Enable MFA Delete.

Answer

Use S3 Standard-IA storage class.

Answer

Configure lifecycle policies to transition to Glacier.

Question 6

A company plans to migrate a relational database to Amazon RDS for MySQL. They need to minimize downtime during the migration. The source database is running on-premises. Which strategy should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication.. AWS DMS with ongoing replication allows the source database to remain operational during migration, minimizing downtime. Option B is incorrect because AWS Snowball is designed for large-scale offline data transfer, not for ongoing replication to minimize downtime. Option C is incorrect because mysqldump requires taking a backup which causes downtime during the export/import process. Option D is incorrect because a read replica can only be created from a source that is already in RDS, not from an on-premises database.

Answer

Use AWS Snowball to transfer the data.

Answer

Use mysqldump to export the database and import into RDS.

Answer

Create a read replica of the on-premises database in RDS.

Question 7

A financial services company is designing a highly available architecture for a critical application on AWS. The application runs on EC2 instances and uses an Oracle database. The database must be resilient to an Availability Zone failure and must have automated failover. Which database solution meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon RDS for Oracle with Multi-AZ deployment.. Amazon RDS for Oracle with Multi-AZ deployment provides automatic failover to a standby instance in a different Availability Zone, meeting the requirements for high availability and automated failover. Option A is incorrect because Amazon Aurora (MySQL-compatible) is not Oracle-compatible, so it cannot replace an Oracle database. Option B is incorrect because a Read Replica in another AZ does not provide automated failover; it is used for read scaling and requires manual promotion. Option C is incorrect because deploying Oracle on EC2 with asynchronous replication requires manual failover management and does not provide automated failover.

Answer

Use Amazon Aurora (MySQL-compatible) with Multi-AZ.

Answer

Use Amazon RDS for Oracle with a Read Replica in another AZ.

Answer

Deploy Oracle on EC2 in two Availability Zones and use asynchronous replication.

Question 8

A company wants to automate the deployment of a three-tier web application on AWS. The deployment should include the network, security groups, EC2 instances, and an Application Load Balancer. Which AWS service should they use?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudFormation. AWS CloudFormation. AWS CloudFormation allows infrastructure as code to provision all required resources, including the network, security groups, EC2 instances, and an Application Load Balancer. Option A (AWS Elastic Beanstalk) abstracts the underlying infrastructure and does not provide granular control. Option C (AWS CodeDeploy) is used for deploying application code, not infrastructure. Option D (AWS OpsWorks) is a configuration management service, not an infrastructure provisioning tool.

Answer

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Answer

AWS CodeDeploy

Answer

AWS OpsWorks

Question 9

A company is building a serverless application using AWS Lambda. The application processes files uploaded to an S3 bucket. Each file can be up to 500 MB, and processing takes up to 10 minutes. The Lambda function must be triggered as soon as a file is uploaded. Which configuration should they use?

Accepted Answer

Configure S3 event notification to invoke the Lambda function directly.. S3 event notifications can directly invoke a Lambda function when an object is created, which meets the requirement of triggering the function as soon as a file is uploaded. Lambda supports a maximum timeout of 15 minutes and up to 10 GB of memory, so the 10-minute processing time and 500 MB file size are within limits. Option A is incorrect because using SQS between S3 and Lambda adds unnecessary complexity and latency, and is not needed when the direct trigger works. Option C is incorrect because increasing timeout and memory addresses resource limits but does not affect triggering; moreover, the default timeout can be set to 10 minutes without issue. Option D is incorrect because Step Functions add unnecessary orchestration complexity when a simple event trigger suffices.

Answer

Use S3 event notification to send an SQS message, which triggers Lambda.

Answer

Increase the Lambda function timeout to 15 minutes and memory to 3 GB.

Answer

Use AWS Step Functions to poll S3 and invoke Lambda.

Question 10

A company is designing a disaster recovery solution for a web application hosted on AWS. The primary site is in us-east-1 and the DR site is in us-west-2. The application uses an Amazon RDS for MySQL database. They need to recover the database with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 5 seconds and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 1 hour. Which solution meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use RDS Cross-Region Read Replica and promote it.. RDS Cross-Region Read Replicas for MySQL provide asynchronous replication with an RPO of typically seconds, and promoting the replica to a standalone instance can be done quickly (minutes), meeting the RTO of 1 hour. Option A is incorrect because Multi-AZ is single region. Option B is incorrect because while DMS can achieve low RPO, it is typically used for migrations and ongoing replication setups may have higher operational complexity and RTO. Option D is incorrect because Amazon Aurora Global Database is not available for RDS MySQL; it is for Aurora databases.

Answer

Use RDS Multi-AZ in us-east-1 and failover to DR site.

Answer

Use AWS DMS with ongoing replication to an RDS instance in us-west-2.

Answer

Use Amazon Aurora Global Database.

Question 11

A company is designing a new microservices architecture on AWS. They need to ensure that services can communicate asynchronously without tight coupling. Which AWS service should they use for message brokering?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS). Option A (Amazon SQS) is correct because SQS provides a fully managed message queuing service for asynchronous communication between microservices, enabling decoupling. Option B (Amazon SNS) is a pub/sub notification service, not a queue. Option C (Amazon Kinesis Data Streams) is for real-time streaming data. Option D (AWS Step Functions) is for workflow orchestration.

Answer

Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)

Answer

Amazon Kinesis Data Streams

Answer

AWS Step Functions

Question 12

A company is building a serverless application using AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, and Amazon DynamoDB. They need to ensure that the application can handle sudden spikes in traffic without throttling. Which design should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Enable DynamoDB auto scaling and configure Lambda function reserved concurrency.. Enabling DynamoDB auto scaling automatically adjusts read/write capacity to handle traffic spikes, while configuring Lambda reserved concurrency ensures that the function has a guaranteed pool of concurrency available, preventing throttling from other functions. Option A (Lambda provisioned concurrency) reduces cold starts but does not prevent throttling; API Gateway usage plans control client access rates but do not handle backend spikes. Option C (reserved concurrency) alone prevents other functions from using concurrency but does not address DynamoDB throttling; API Gateway cache reduces read load but not write spikes. Option D (DAX) is a caching layer for DynamoDB reads, not a scaling mechanism for traffic spikes.

Answer

Use Lambda provisioned concurrency and an API Gateway usage plan.

Answer

Configure Lambda function reserved concurrency and an API Gateway cache.

Answer

Use DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) and Lambda function reserved concurrency.

Question 13

A company needs to store configuration data for multiple applications in a centralized, secure, and versioned manner. The configuration must be encrypted at rest and automatically rotated. Which AWS service should they use?

Accepted Answer

AWS AppConfig. AWS AppConfig supports versioned configuration, encryption at rest, and automatic rotation. Option A (AWS CloudFormation) is for infrastructure as code, not for storing application configuration. Option B (AWS Secrets Manager) is designed for managing secrets (e.g., passwords, API keys), not general configuration data. Option D (AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store) can store configuration but does not support automatic rotation of configuration values.

Answer

AWS CloudFormation

Answer

AWS Secrets Manager

Answer

AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store

Question 14

A company is designing a data lake on AWS using Amazon S3. They need to query the data using standard SQL without moving it to a separate analytics store. Which AWS service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Athena. Amazon Athena is correct because it is a serverless interactive query service that uses standard SQL to query data directly in Amazon S3 without requiring any infrastructure or data movement. Option B (AWS Glue) is primarily used for ETL and data cataloging, not for ad hoc querying. Option C (Amazon QuickSight) is a business intelligence tool for visualization, not direct SQL querying. Option D (Amazon Redshift Spectrum) can query S3 data but requires an active Amazon Redshift cluster, making it not as simple or serverless as Athena for this use case.

Answer

AWS Glue

Answer

Amazon QuickSight

Answer

Amazon Redshift Spectrum

Question 15

A company is migrating a legacy monolithic application to a microservices architecture on AWS. They want to use an event-driven design where services react to state changes. Which AWS service should they use to capture, store, and replay events?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EventBridge. (Amazon EventBridge) is correct because it is a serverless event bus that can capture events from various sources, store them, and allow replay, making it ideal for event-driven microservices. Amazon EventBridge supports event archival and replay, enabling services to react to state changes. In contrast, Option A (Amazon SNS) is a pub/sub messaging service that does not store events for replay. Option B (Amazon Kinesis Data Streams) can replay data but is designed for real-time streaming data ingestion, not event sourcing in microservices. Option D (Amazon SQS) is a queue service for message decoupling and lacks event replay capability.

Answer

Amazon SNS

Answer

Amazon Kinesis Data Streams

Answer

Amazon SQS