SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
This SAP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of design for new solutions. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company is designing a multi-tier web application that must be fault-tolerant and scalable. The application uses an Application Load Balancer (ALB) to distribute traffic to EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. The instances run a web server and a backend application. Which TWO steps should be taken to ensure the application can scale without data loss?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Store session state in an external data store such as ElastiCache.
Option B is correct because storing session state in an external data store like ElastiCache decouples session data from individual EC2 instances. This ensures that if an instance is terminated or replaced during scaling events, the session data persists and can be served by any other instance in the Auto Scaling group, preventing data loss and maintaining user experience.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Use instance store volumes for temporary data.
Why it's wrong here
Instance store is ephemeral; data is lost on termination.
✓
Store session state in an external data store such as ElastiCache.
Why this is correct
Storing session state externally makes instances stateless, preventing data loss on scale-in.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Implement lifecycle hooks to gracefully handle instance termination.
Why this is correct
Lifecycle hooks allow the instance to finish processing before termination.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use a custom CloudWatch metric to scale based on CPU utilization.
Use a fixed number of EC2 instances instead of Auto Scaling.
Why it's wrong here
Fixed number does not scale.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse instance store with EBS or assume that lifecycle hooks alone (Option C) prevent data loss, but lifecycle hooks only delay termination for cleanup—they do not preserve session data if the instance is ultimately terminated, making an external data store essential.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, ElastiCache for Redis offers in-memory data persistence with optional replication and automatic failover, enabling session state to survive individual instance failures. When an instance is terminated, the ALB routes new requests to healthy instances, which retrieve the session from ElastiCache using a session ID cookie, ensuring zero data loss. In a real-world scenario, a flash sale could trigger rapid scale-in; without an external store, terminated instances would drop all active sessions, causing user logout or cart loss.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Design for New Solutions — This question tests Design for New Solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Store session state in an external data store such as ElastiCache. — Option B is correct because storing session state in an external data store like ElastiCache decouples session data from individual EC2 instances. This ensures that if an instance is terminated or replaced during scaling events, the session data persists and can be served by any other instance in the Auto Scaling group, preventing data loss and maintaining user experience.
What should I do if I get this SAP-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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