SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company has a serverless application using AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway. The application experiences cold starts that cause latency spikes. Which solution would reduce the impact of cold starts?
⚠ Common exam trap
SAP-C02 often tests cold start mitigation — candidates pick 'increase memory' because it speeds execution, but memory tuning does not eliminate cold starts; only Provisioned Concurrency (or SnapStart for Java) directly addresses initialization latency.
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
✓
Configure Provisioned Concurrency for the Lambda function.
Provisioned Concurrency pre-initializes a specified number of Lambda execution environments so they are ready to respond immediately, eliminating cold starts for that concurrency level. This directly addresses latency spikes caused by cold starts. It is the purpose-built feature for latency-sensitive serverless workloads.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Configure Provisioned Concurrency for the Lambda function.
Why this is correct
Provisioned Concurrency pre-initialises a specified number of Lambda execution environments, so invocations skip the init phase that causes cold-start latency. It directly satisfies the stem's requirement to reduce cold-start impact for the API Gateway-fronted function, unlike memory tuning or reserved concurrency, which do not pre-warm environments.
- ✗
Increase the Lambda function memory allocation.
Why it's wrong here
Memory allocation scales CPU proportionally, shortening execution time but not the initialisation latency of a cold start itself. Raising memory is the right lever for CPU-bound functions that time out or run slowly once warm, not for reducing the frequency or duration of cold-start initialisation.
- ✗
Decrease the Lambda function timeout.
Why it's wrong here
The timeout caps how long an invocation may run; lowering it truncates long executions and cannot shorten initialisation. Timeouts are tuned to fail fast on runaway invocations, so this would cause premature termination rather than mitigate cold-start latency spikes.
- ✗
Use a VPC and enable Lambda to access resources in the VPC.
Why it's wrong here
Attaching a VPC adds ENI creation and attachment to the initialisation phase, lengthening cold starts rather than reducing them. VPC access is required when the function must reach private resources such as RDS or ElastiCache, which is a connectivity requirement, not a latency remedy.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
This SAP-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 SAP-C02 exam.