SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
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?
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
✓
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 analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Amazon Athena
Why this is correct
Athena is serverless, queries S3 directly with SQL.
- ✗
AWS Glue
Why it's wrong here
Glue is for ETL jobs, not interactive querying.
- ✗
Amazon QuickSight
Why it's wrong here
QuickSight is for business intelligence and dashboards, not raw SQL queries.
- ✗
Amazon Redshift Spectrum
Why it's wrong here
Redshift Spectrum requires a Redshift cluster.
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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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.