SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a new event-driven architecture on AWS for processing orders. When a new order is placed, it must be validated, inventory checked, payment processed, and notification sent. Each step is independent and may take variable time. The company wants to decouple the steps and ensure that failures do not block the entire workflow. Which solution should a Solutions Architect recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse decoupling with simple fan-out (SNS) or queue-based processing (SQS), overlooking the need for orchestration with error handling and sequential/parallel coordination that Step Functions uniquely provides.
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 AWS Step Functions to define a state machine that invokes Lambda functions for each step, with retry and error handling.
AWS Step Functions is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed state machine that can orchestrate multiple Lambda functions with built-in retry logic, error handling, and parallel execution. This decouples each step (validation, inventory, payment, notification) while ensuring that failures in one step do not block the entire workflow, as Step Functions can handle errors gracefully with configurable retries and fallback states.
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 SQS queues for each step, with Lambda functions polling each queue and forwarding to the next step.
Why it's wrong here
This requires custom coordination logic; not as robust as Step Functions.
- ✗
Use Amazon SNS to publish order events, and subscribe separate Lambda functions for validation, inventory, payment, and notification.
Why it's wrong here
SNS fan-out is good for decoupling but does not handle workflow orchestration or failure coordination.
- ✓
Use AWS Step Functions to define a state machine that invokes Lambda functions for each step, with retry and error handling.
Why this is correct
Step Functions provides orchestration, error handling, and visibility into the workflow.
- ✗
Create a single Lambda function that performs all steps sequentially.
Why it's wrong here
A monolithic function is tightly coupled; a failure in one step stops the entire process.
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 |
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This SAP-C02 question is part of Courseiva's 1,660-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.