CLF-C02 Cloud Concepts Practice Question
A company wants to migrate 50 virtual machines from their on-premises data centre to AWS as quickly as possible to reduce data centre costs. They plan to move the VMs without making any changes to the applications. Which cloud migration strategy does this represent?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse Rehost (no changes) with Replatform (minimal changes), often selecting Replatform because they think moving to AWS inherently requires some modification, but the exam explicitly defines Rehost as migrating without any application changes.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Rehost
(Rehost) is correct because the company is migrating 50 virtual machines to AWS without making any changes to the applications, which is the defining characteristic of a 'lift and shift' migration. This strategy involves moving the VMs as-is, typically using AWS Server Migration Service (SMS) or AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN), to quickly reduce on-premises data center costs without application refactoring.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Refactor
Why it's wrong here
Refactoring (or re-architecting) transforms an application's architecture to be cloud-native, such as breaking a monolithic app into microservices, containerizing it with Amazon ECS or EKS, or rewriting components to use serverless services like Lambda and Step Functions. This strategy maximizes modernization benefits like elasticity and operational efficiency, but it requires rewriting code, changing data storage, and running extensive regression testing. Because the company's goal is to move applications with no changes and minimize disruption, refactoring's complexity and long timeline make it the wrong choice for this scenario.
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Replatform
Why it's wrong here
Replatforming applies targeted cloud optimizations, such as replacing a self-managed MySQL database with Amazon RDS or moving a workload to a managed container service, while leaving the application's core code and business logic untouched. Although this strategy is faster and less invasive than refactoring, it still changes the deployment environment, which contradicts a strict lift-and-shift requirement of moving the application with no changes. Since rehosting lifts the existing VM without altering anything, replatforming is not the correct choice for this scenario.
- ✓
Rehost
Why this is correct
Rehosting, also known as lift-and-shift, involves migrating applications and their underlying virtual machines from on-premises infrastructure to AWS EC2 instances without making any changes to configuration, code, or architecture. Tools like AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) automate this process, making it the fastest and least disruptive way to transition to the cloud while preserving the exact runtime environment. Because the company explicitly wants to continue running its applications with no modifications, rehosting directly satisfies that goal and enables a rapid exit from the on-premises data center.
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Retire
Why it's wrong here
Retirement is a migration strategy that decommissions applications that are no longer needed, freeing up resources and reducing cost and security risk. However, the company's stated intention is to migrate and continue running all existing applications in the cloud, not to eliminate any of them. Retiring the applications would remove precisely the workloads that need to be preserved, so this strategy is fundamentally incompatible with the requirements of a lift-and-shift move.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CLF-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CLF-C02 exam.