SAP-C02 Practice Question: Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization
A company is migrating a critical application to AWS and wants to ensure business continuity during the cutover. The migration plan includes a pilot light strategy. Which of the following BEST describes the pilot light pattern?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse the pilot light pattern with the warm standby pattern, as both involve a running environment in AWS, but pilot light uses a minimal stack that is not fully functional until scaled up, whereas warm standby runs a fully functional scaled-down version.
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
✓
Replicate data to AWS and run a minimal version of the application that can be scaled up during cutover.
The pilot light pattern is a disaster recovery strategy where core data is continuously replicated to AWS, and a minimal version of the application (e.g., a small EC2 instance running the application stack) is kept running. During cutover, this minimal environment is rapidly scaled up to full production capacity. This matches option C, as it describes replicating data and running a minimal version that can be scaled up.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Take regular backups and restore them in AWS during cutover.
Why it's wrong here
This is backup and restore, not pilot light.
- ✗
Run a scaled-down but fully functional version of the environment in AWS at all times.
Why it's wrong here
This describes warm standby.
- ✓
Replicate data to AWS and run a minimal version of the application that can be scaled up during cutover.
Why this is correct
Correct definition of pilot light.
- ✗
Run the application simultaneously in both environments and route traffic to both.
Why it's wrong here
This describes multi-site active-active.
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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.