SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a serverless data processing pipeline using AWS Step Functions, AWS Lambda, and Amazon DynamoDB. The pipeline must process incoming JSON records from an Amazon Kinesis Data Stream. Each record must be processed exactly once and in order. The company expects a throughput of up to 1,000 records per second. Which combination of services and configurations should the company use to meet these requirements? (Choose TWO.)
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to assume Step Functions can enforce exactly-once delivery, but Step Functions is a state machine orchestrator and does not provide data-level deduplication; exactly-once processing must be implemented at the application layer with idempotent consumers.
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 the Kinesis Data Stream with 10 shards.
With a throughput of 1,000 records per second, a Kinesis Data Stream with 10 shards provides the necessary capacity (each shard supports up to 1,000 records/second for ingestion and 2 MB/s for reads). This shard count ensures the stream can handle the peak load without throttling, while maintaining the ordering guarantee within each shard.
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 DynamoDB Streams to trigger the Lambda function for each record.
Why it's wrong here
DynamoDB Streams are not the source; the source is Kinesis.
- ✗
Use an Amazon SQS FIFO queue as the event source for the Lambda function to maintain order.
Why it's wrong here
SQS FIFO does not directly integrate with Kinesis Data Streams.
- ✓
Configure the Kinesis Data Stream with 10 shards.
Why this is correct
10 shards provide sufficient throughput and each shard maintains record order.
- ✗
Use AWS Step Functions to coordinate processing of records and ensure exactly-once delivery.
Why it's wrong here
Step Functions can orchestrate but does not guarantee ordering from Kinesis.
- ✓
Configure the Lambda function to process records from each shard sequentially by setting the batch size to 1.
Why this is correct
Processing one record at a time ensures exactly-once processing and order.
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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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.