SAP-C02 Practice Question: Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization
A company is migrating a 10 TB Oracle database to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. The database is business-critical and must have minimal downtime. The company has set up AWS DMS with ongoing replication from the source. During the migration, the company notices that DMS is failing with an error indicating insufficient memory. What should the company do to resolve this issue and complete the migration?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates think the error is on the source database (Option A) or that splitting tasks (Option D) solves memory issues, but DMS's memory error is specific to the replication instance's capacity, not the source or task granularity.
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
✓
Increase the instance class of the DMS replication instance
AWS DMS replication instances have finite memory allocated to cache changes during ongoing replication (CDC). When the volume of cached changes exceeds the instance's memory, DMS fails with an insufficient memory error. Increasing the instance class of the DMS replication instance (Option B) provides more memory to handle the cache, resolving the error without disrupting the migration.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the memory on the source Oracle database
Why it's wrong here
Source database memory has no bearing on the DMS replication instance's capacity; the out-of-memory error originates on the replication instance itself. Increasing source memory would be appropriate when the Oracle host is starved of SGA or PGA resources.
- ✓
Increase the instance class of the DMS replication instance
Why this is correct
DMS memory exhaustion during ongoing replication is resolved by scaling the replication instance to a larger class, providing more RAM for change-data-capture buffers. This addresses the insufficient-memory error without restarting the migration or altering source data.
- ✗
Change the DMS task to use change data capture (CDC) only and skip the full load
Why it's wrong here
CDC-only skips the initial full load, so the 10 TB of existing rows never reach Aurora PostgreSQL; ongoing replication alone cannot populate them. It is tempting because CDC minimises downtime on large tables, and it would suit a scenario where the target is already seeded by a separate bulk load.
- ✗
Split the migration into multiple smaller tasks
Why it's wrong here
Splitting into multiple tasks partitions tables across tasks but does not raise the memory allocated to each; a single large table still exhausts the task's memory during full load. It is tempting because parallel tasks genuinely speed up migrations, and it would be correct where the bottleneck is task throughput rather than per-task memory.
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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.