SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a new microservices-based application on AWS. They want to ensure that services can discover each other dynamically and that traffic can be load balanced across multiple Availability Zones. Which AWS service should they use for service discovery?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse Route 53 private hosted zones (which provide static DNS resolution) with a dynamic service discovery solution, overlooking that Cloud Map is specifically designed for dynamic registration and health-aware endpoint resolution.
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
✓
AWS Cloud Map
AWS Cloud Map is a cloud resource discovery service that allows microservices to dynamically register their endpoints (IP addresses, ports) and discover each other via DNS or API calls. It integrates with Amazon Route 53 auto-naming and health checks, enabling load-balanced traffic across multiple Availability Zones by returning healthy, available endpoints. This makes it the correct choice for dynamic service discovery in a microservices architecture.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS Service Catalog
Why it's wrong here
Service Catalog governs approved product portfolios for provisioning, not runtime service registration or health-checked endpoint discovery. It is tempting because it manages AWS resources centrally, but dynamic discovery with cross-AZ load balancing is handled by AWS Cloud Map.
- ✗
Amazon Route 53 private hosted zones
Why it's wrong here
Private hosted zones resolve DNS names but provide no service registry, health checking, or instance registration, so endpoints are not discovered dynamically. It is tempting because DNS-based discovery is a recognised pattern, yet Cloud Map is the managed service built for that purpose.
- ✗
AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store
Why it's wrong here
Parameter Store holds configuration values and secrets, not a registry of live service instances with health status, so it cannot drive dynamic discovery. It is tempting because services can poll parameters for endpoints, but Cloud Map provides registration and health-checked discovery natively.
- ✓
AWS Cloud Map
Why this is correct
AWS Cloud Map provides dynamic service discovery by maintaining a registry that maps service names to endpoints, letting microservices locate each other without hard-coded addresses. It integrates with Route 53 health checks to return only healthy instances, and supports multi-AZ load balancing across registered endpoints, satisfying the stem's discovery and cross-AZ traffic requirements.
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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.