SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is building a serverless data processing pipeline using AWS Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon S3. The pipeline processes JSON files uploaded to an S3 bucket, transforms the data, and writes results to DynamoDB. The company wants to ensure the pipeline can handle bursts of traffic without data loss. Which TWO design decisions should the solutions architect make?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse DynamoDB Streams with a buffering mechanism for incoming writes, when in fact streams only capture post-write changes and do not prevent data loss from S3 event delivery failures.
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 DynamoDB with on-demand capacity mode.
DynamoDB on-demand capacity mode (Option A) automatically scales read/write throughput to handle traffic spikes without requiring capacity planning or risking throttling. This is essential for a serverless pipeline that experiences bursts of traffic, as it prevents data loss by ensuring writes always succeed without ProvisionedThroughputExceededException errors.
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 DynamoDB with on-demand capacity mode.
Why this is correct
On-demand capacity automatically scales to handle bursts without throttling.
- ✓
Use an Amazon SQS queue to buffer events from S3 before processing by Lambda.
Why this is correct
SQS decouples and buffers messages, preventing loss during traffic bursts.
- ✗
Increase the Lambda function timeout to 15 minutes.
Why it's wrong here
Timeout does not prevent data loss; it only allows longer execution.
- ✗
Use DynamoDB Streams to capture changes and process in batches.
Why it's wrong here
Streams are for change data capture, not for handling burst traffic.
- ✗
Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration on the bucket.
Why it's wrong here
Transfer Acceleration speeds up uploads, not processing.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
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