SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a new microservices application on AWS. The application consists of several services that need to communicate asynchronously. One service generates orders and sends them to a processing service. The order volume can vary significantly, and the processing service must scale independently. The company wants to use a managed service to decouple the services and ensure that messages are not lost. The processing service is written in Python and runs on AWS Lambda. The solutions architect needs to design the message delivery mechanism. The architect decides to use Amazon SQS. However, the Lambda function sometimes fails to process a message due to a transient error, and the message should be retried. After a maximum of three retries, the message should be moved to a dead-letter queue for analysis. Which configuration should the architect use?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is assuming a visibility timeout value without knowing the Lambda function timeout, or misunderstanding that the redrive policy sends messages to a DLQ rather than back to the source queue.
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
✓
Configure the SQS queue with a visibility timeout of 6 minutes and a redrive policy with maxReceiveCount of 3, pointing to a DLQ.
The stem does not state the Lambda function timeout, so the visibility timeout cannot be determined from the given information. The redrive policy with maxReceiveCount of 3 correctly moves messages to a DLQ after three failed receives, but the visibility timeout must be at least the Lambda function timeout to avoid duplicate processing. Since the function timeout is unspecified, the question should either provide the Lambda timeout or focus on the redrive policy configuration rather than an arbitrary visibility timeout value.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Configure the SQS DLQ with a redrive policy that allows messages to be sent back to the source queue after 3 retries.
Why it's wrong here
The redrive policy is configured on the source queue, not on the DLQ.
- ✓
Configure the SQS queue with a visibility timeout of 6 minutes and a redrive policy with maxReceiveCount of 3, pointing to a DLQ.
Why this is correct
The redrive policy's maxReceiveCount of 3 moves a message to the DLQ after three failed receives, satisfying the retry limit. The visibility timeout must exceed the Lambda function's execution time so the message stays hidden during processing, preventing premature redelivery.
- ✗
Configure the SQS queue with a visibility timeout of 30 seconds and a redrive policy with maxReceiveCount of 3, pointing to a DLQ.
Why it's wrong here
A 30-second visibility timeout is too short for typical Lambda processing; the visibility timeout should be at least 6 minutes to allow the Lambda function time to process and delete or retry the message.
- ✗
Configure Lambda with a reserved concurrency of 1 and set the SQS queue's redrive policy to maxReceiveCount of 3.
Why it's wrong here
Reserved concurrency is unrelated to retry behavior and would limit the Lambda function's ability to scale.
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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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
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.