SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a new application that requires a relational database. The application has variable traffic, with high spikes during business hours and low traffic at night. The company wants to minimize costs while ensuring the database can handle the spikes. Which solution should the architect recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently choose Multi-AZ RDS with read replicas (option A) thinking it handles spikes via read scaling, but they overlook that write spikes still require manual compute scaling, whereas Aurora Serverless is the only option that automatically scales both compute and cost for variable traffic.
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
✓
Use Amazon RDS with Multi-AZ and read replicas, or Amazon Aurora Serverless
Amazon Aurora Serverless automatically scales compute capacity based on application demand, making it ideal for variable traffic with high spikes during business hours and low traffic at night, while minimizing costs by only paying for consumed resources. Multi-AZ RDS with read replicas provides high availability and read scaling but does not automatically scale compute for write spikes, so Aurora Serverless is the more cost-effective and fully managed solution 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.
- ✓
Use Amazon RDS with Multi-AZ and read replicas, or Amazon Aurora Serverless
Why this is correct
Multi-AZ provides high availability, read replicas handle read spikes, and Aurora Serverless automatically scales compute.
- ✗
Use Amazon RDS with a Single-AZ instance and automatic scaling
Why it's wrong here
Single-AZ is not highly available, and RDS does not have automatic scaling for compute.
- ✗
Use Amazon DynamoDB with on-demand capacity
Why it's wrong here
DynamoDB is a NoSQL database, not relational.
- ✗
Use Amazon RDS with a Single-AZ instance and a large instance size
Why it's wrong here
Single-AZ is not highly available, and a large instance may be over-provisioned during low traffic.
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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