SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a new microservices architecture on AWS. Each service needs to store and retrieve small amounts of configuration data (under 10 KB per item) with low latency. The data is accessed frequently and must be highly available across multiple Availability Zones. Which AWS service should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently choose Amazon S3 for any 'storage' need without considering latency requirements, or they pick ElastiCache thinking it provides durable storage, when in fact DynamoDB is the only option that combines low latency, high availability across AZs, and native persistence for small configuration items.
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
✓
Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon DynamoDB is the correct choice because it is a fully managed NoSQL key-value and document database that delivers single-digit millisecond latency at any scale, making it ideal for frequently accessed configuration data under 10 KB. It provides built-in high availability and durability by automatically replicating data across three Availability Zones in an AWS Region, meeting the requirement for multi-AZ resilience without manual setup.
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 S3
Why it's wrong here
S3 is object storage with higher latency for small objects and not ideal for frequent updates.
- ✗
Amazon ElastiCache for Memcached
Why it's wrong here
ElastiCache for Memcached is a volatile cache with no replication or Multi-AZ failover, so cached configuration is lost on node failure and cannot satisfy the high-availability requirement. It suits ephemeral session or fragment caching where loss is tolerable. Persistent, replicated configuration storage needs a different service.
- ✗
Amazon RDS for MySQL
Why it's wrong here
RDS for MySQL stores configuration in relational tables, adding connection management, query parsing and Multi-AZ failover latency that exceeds the millisecond reads required. It suits transactional workloads needing joins, schemas and ACID guarantees, not frequent key-value lookups of sub-10 KB items. The stem's access pattern calls for a purpose-built key-value store.
- ✓
Amazon DynamoDB
Why this is correct
DynamoDB stores items up to 400 KB, so sub-10 KB configuration data fits comfortably, and its multi-AZ replication delivers the required high availability. Provisioned throughput with single-digit millisecond latency suits frequent access, while key-value lookups avoid the overhead of relational joins or filesystem semantics.
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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.