SAP-C02 Practice Question: Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization
A company is migrating a critical application to AWS. The application requires a relational database with high availability and automated failover. The company wants to use a fully managed database service. Which AWS service should the architect choose?
⚠ Common exam trap
SAP-C02 often tests whether candidates confuse Multi-AZ (HA/failover) with read replicas (read scaling) — Multi-AZ is for availability, not performance, and Single-AZ is never the answer when automated failover is required.
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
✓
Amazon RDS Multi-AZ
Amazon RDS Multi-AZ provides a fully managed relational database with synchronous replication to a standby instance in a different Availability Zone and automatic failover, meeting the high availability and automated failover requirements. It is the correct choice for a relational workload needing managed HA.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Amazon RDS Multi-AZ
Why this is correct
Amazon RDS Multi-AZ maintains a synchronous standby replica in a second Availability Zone and automatically promotes it during failure, giving the required high availability and automated failover. RDS is fully managed, handling patching, backups and instance replacement.
- ✗
Amazon ElastiCache
Why it's wrong here
ElastiCache is an in-memory cache store, not a relational database, so it cannot satisfy the relational and failover requirements. It is tempting because it is fully managed and highly available; it would be the right choice for offloading read traffic or session storage in front of a database.
- ✗
Amazon DynamoDB
Why it's wrong here
DynamoDB is a NoSQL key-value store, so it does not provide a relational schema or SQL engine. It is tempting because it is fully managed, multi-AZ by default and scales automatically; it would be correct for high-throughput key-value or document workloads, not relational ones.
- ✗
Amazon RDS Single-AZ
Why it's wrong here
Single-AZ RDS runs one Availability Zone with no standby, so a zone failure causes downtime and no automated failover occurs. It is tempting because RDS is the correct fully managed relational engine; Multi-AZ deployments, not Single-AZ, provide the synchronous standby and automatic failover the scenario demands.
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
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.