SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a new static website hosted on Amazon S3. The website must be served over HTTPS with a custom domain name. Which AWS service should be used to achieve this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates assume S3 static website hosting can directly serve HTTPS with a custom domain, but S3's built-in website endpoint does not support custom SSL certificates, making CloudFront the required service for HTTPS termination with a custom domain.
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 CloudFront with SSL certificate
Amazon CloudFront can be configured to serve content from an S3 bucket as the origin, and it supports custom SSL certificates via AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) or IAM, enabling HTTPS for a custom domain. This is the recommended architecture for static websites requiring HTTPS because CloudFront provides edge caching, DDoS protection, and seamless SSL termination.
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 Route 53 with alias record
Why it's wrong here
Route 53 is a DNS service, it does not serve content or provide HTTPS.
- ✓
Amazon CloudFront with SSL certificate
Why this is correct
CloudFront can be configured with a custom SSL certificate and domain to serve HTTPS.
- ✗
Amazon S3 static website hosting with bucket policy
Why it's wrong here
S3 static website hosting does not support HTTPS with custom domains; it only provides an HTTP endpoint.
- ✗
Elastic Load Balancer with SSL termination
Why it's wrong here
ELB is for dynamic content behind EC2, not for static S3 websites.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on SAP-C02
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 static website hosted on Amazon S3. They want to use Amazon CloudFront as a content delivery network (CDN) to serve the website globally with low latency. The website content must be encrypted in transit. Which configurations should they use? (Choose TWO.)
easy- A.Enable default encryption on the S3 bucket using AES-256.
- B.Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration on the bucket.
- ✓ C.Configure the S3 bucket policy to deny requests that do not use HTTPS.
- ✓ D.Configure CloudFront to require HTTPS for viewer requests.
- E.Use CloudFront signed URLs to restrict access.
Why C: Configuring the S3 bucket policy to deny requests that do not use HTTPS ensures that all traffic to the S3 origin is encrypted in transit, preventing data exposure during transit between CloudFront and S3. Option D is correct because configuring CloudFront to require HTTPS for viewer requests enforces encryption between end users and CloudFront, fulfilling the requirement for encryption in transit for the entire delivery path.
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.