SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a serverless application using AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway. The application must handle sudden spikes in traffic and ensure that no requests are lost. Which of the following design choices will BEST meet these requirements?
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 API Gateway with a usage plan and throttling, and set Lambda reserved concurrency to limit the function's maximum capacity.
Configuring API Gateway with usage plans and throttling prevents overwhelming the backend, while Lambda reserved concurrency ensures a minimum capacity for the function. Option A is wrong because Lambda provisioned concurrency adds cost and is for reducing cold starts, not for handling spikes without loss. Option C is wrong because Step Functions add orchestration overhead and complexity, and while they can implement retry logic, they do not directly prevent request loss during sudden traffic spikes. Option D is wrong because SQS buffers requests but does not prevent loss if the Lambda function fails to scale and process messages fast enough; it relies on the Lambda scaling and may still result in throttling if the queue grows too large.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use Lambda provisioned concurrency to pre-warm the function and reduce cold starts.
Why it's wrong here
Provisioned concurrency reduces cold starts but does not guarantee request handling during sudden spikes; requests may still throttle.
- ✓
Configure API Gateway with a usage plan and throttling, and set Lambda reserved concurrency to limit the function's maximum capacity.
Why this is correct
Usage plans and throttling control the request rate, while reserved concurrency ensures the Lambda function has dedicated capacity to handle the allowed traffic without being throttled by other functions.
- ✗
Use AWS Step Functions to orchestrate the Lambda invocations and implement retry logic.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Step Functions add orchestration overhead and complexity, but they do not directly handle sudden spikes in traffic or prevent request loss without additional scaling mechanisms.
- ✗
Use Amazon SQS to buffer requests and have Lambda poll the queue at a fixed rate.
Why it's wrong here
Amazon SQS decouples the requests from Lambda but does not prevent loss if Lambda does not scale appropriately; it can buffer requests, but without proper scaling, messages may still be lost or delayed.
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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