The correct answer is Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, AWS Lambda, and Amazon S3. This combination works because Kinesis Data Streams provides durable, low-latency ingestion for real-time streaming IoT data processing on AWS, handling the high throughput from thousands of devices, while AWS Lambda processes each record on arrival through event source mapping, eliminating the need for managing servers or polling. The processed data is then written directly to Amazon S3, which serves as a cost-effective, scalable storage layer for downstream analytics. On the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional SAP-C02 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of serverless, event-driven architectures for streaming workloads; a common trap is choosing Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose for processing, but Firehose lacks built-in per-record transformation logic and is better suited for near-real-time batch delivery rather than the low-latency processing required here. Remember the mnemonic "K-L-S" for Kinesis, Lambda, S3—think of it as "Keep Latency Short" to avoid overcomplicating the architecture.
SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
This SAP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of design for new solutions. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 new application that will process real-time streaming data from thousands of IoT devices. The data must be ingested, processed with low latency, and stored in Amazon S3 for analytics. Which combination of AWS services should the company use to meet these requirements?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, AWS Lambda, Amazon S3
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams ingests real-time streaming data from thousands of IoT devices with low latency, and AWS Lambda can process each record as it arrives via event source mapping. The processed data is then stored in Amazon S3 for analytics, meeting all requirements for ingestion, low-latency processing, and durable storage.
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.
✗
Amazon SQS, AWS Lambda, Amazon S3
Why it's wrong here
SQS is a message queue, not designed for real-time streaming ingestion.
✗
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose, Amazon Redshift, Amazon S3
Why it's wrong here
Firehose delivers to Redshift or S3 but does not support real-time processing.
✗
Amazon MQ, AWS Lambda, Amazon RDS
Why it's wrong here
Amazon MQ is for message queues, RDS is for relational data, not streaming.
✓
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, AWS Lambda, Amazon S3
Why this is correct
Kinesis Data Streams ingests streaming data, Lambda processes it, S3 stores it.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse Amazon SQS with Kinesis Data Streams for real-time streaming, but SQS is a pull-based queue with no ordered replay or shard-level parallelism, making it unsuitable for high-throughput IoT data ingestion.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Kinesis Data Streams uses shards to scale ingestion, with each shard supporting up to 1,000 records per second or 1 MB/s input. AWS Lambda processes records from the stream using the Kinesis event source, which polls the shards and invokes the function synchronously, enabling sub-second processing latency. The processed data can be written to S3 using the AWS SDK, leveraging S3's eventual consistency for analytics workloads.
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: Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, AWS Lambda, Amazon S3 — Amazon Kinesis Data Streams ingests real-time streaming data from thousands of IoT devices with low latency, and AWS Lambda can process each record as it arrives via event source mapping. The processed data is then stored in Amazon S3 for analytics, meeting all requirements for ingestion, low-latency processing, and durable storage.
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.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company is designing a new application on AWS that processes real-time IoT sensor data from thousands of devices. The data must be ingested, processed, and stored for analysis. The company wants to use a serverless architecture to reduce operational overhead. The processing includes filtering, aggregation, and transformation. Which solution should a Solutions Architect recommend?
medium
A.Use Amazon Kinesis Data Streams to ingest data, use Kinesis Data Firehose to deliver data to S3, and use Athena for queries.
B.Use Amazon Kinesis Data Streams to ingest data, trigger a Lambda function for processing, and store results in DynamoDB.
C.Use Amazon SQS to ingest sensor data, trigger a Lambda function for processing, and store results in DynamoDB.
✓ D.Use AWS IoT Core to ingest data, use IoT rules to route data to Kinesis Data Analytics for real-time processing, and store results in S3.
Why D: Option C is correct because IoT Core is purpose-built for IoT device ingestion, rules engine can process and route data, Kinesis Data Analytics provides real-time SQL processing, and S3 stores results. Option A is wrong because SQS is not a streaming ingestion service. Option B is wrong because Lambda functions triggered by SQS may have concurrency limits and are not ideal for high-throughput streaming. Option D is wrong because Kinesis Data Firehose delivers data in batches, not real-time processing.
Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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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.
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