SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a new web application that will serve static content (HTML, CSS, JS, images) to users globally. The application must have low latency and high availability. Content changes infrequently, but when updated, the changes must be reflected immediately. Which solution should the architect recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates may over-engineer the solution by choosing EC2 or ElastiCache, mistakenly thinking they need compute or caching layers for static content, when S3 + CloudFront is the simplest, most cost-effective, and fully managed solution for global static content delivery.
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
✓
Store content in an S3 bucket and use Amazon CloudFront with S3 as origin
Amazon CloudFront, with an S3 bucket as the origin, provides a global content delivery network (CDN) that caches static content at edge locations, significantly reducing latency for users worldwide. S3 offers durable, highly available storage, and CloudFront’s cache invalidation or versioned object updates allow changes to be reflected immediately when content is updated. This combination meets the requirements for low latency, high availability, and immediate content refresh.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Store content in an S3 bucket and use Amazon CloudFront with S3 as origin
Why this is correct
CloudFront provides global edge caching for low latency, and invalidations allow immediate content updates.
- ✗
Store content on an EC2 instance behind an Application Load Balancer and use CloudFront
Why it's wrong here
This adds unnecessary complexity and cost; S3 is sufficient for static content.
- ✗
Store content in Amazon ElastiCache for Redis and use CloudFront
Why it's wrong here
ElastiCache is a caching layer, not designed for storing and serving static files.
- ✗
Store content in an S3 bucket and use S3 Transfer Acceleration
Why it's wrong here
S3 alone does not provide global low latency; Transfer Acceleration speeds up uploads, not downloads.
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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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.