The correct strategies are to use an Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic across multiple EC2 instances and to leverage managed services like Amazon RDS and ElastiCache. This combination minimizes operational overhead for legacy TCP application migration by offloading administrative tasks such as patching, backups, and replication, while the ALB provides high availability by routing traffic across healthy instances in multiple Availability Zones. On the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional SAP-C02 exam, this scenario tests your ability to distinguish between managed and unmanaged services—a common trap is to over-engineer with custom clustering or self-managed load balancers, which increase overhead. Remember that for TCP-based legacy apps, the ALB handles both HTTP and TCP listeners, making it a versatile choice. Memory tip: “ALB for availability, RDS for relief”—the load balancer handles traffic distribution, while managed databases and caches handle the heavy lifting of operations.
SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
This SAP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of design for new solutions. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company is migrating a legacy application to AWS. The application consists of several components that communicate via TCP. The solutions architect must design a solution that minimizes operational overhead and provides high availability. Which TWO strategies should be used?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use managed services like Amazon RDS and Amazon ElastiCache to reduce operational overhead.
Option B is correct because using managed services like Amazon RDS and Amazon ElastiCache offloads administrative tasks such as patching, backups, and replication setup, significantly reducing operational overhead. Option E is correct because an Application Load Balancer (ALB) distributes incoming TCP traffic across multiple EC2 instances in different Availability Zones, providing high availability and fault tolerance for the application components.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
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 instance store volumes for data persistence.
Why it's wrong here
Instance store is ephemeral; use EBS or RDS for persistence.
✓
Use managed services like Amazon RDS and Amazon ElastiCache to reduce operational overhead.
Why this is correct
Managed services reduce overhead and provide HA out-of-the-box.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use Spot Instances for all compute resources.
Why it's wrong here
Spot Instances can be terminated, not suitable for critical production.
✗
Use VPC Peering to connect components.
Why it's wrong here
VPC Peering provides connectivity but not HA.
✓
Use an Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic across multiple EC2 instances.
Why this is correct
ALB provides high availability and decoupling.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates may confuse high availability with data persistence, incorrectly choosing instance store volumes (Option A) for persistence, or assume that Spot Instances (Option C) can be used for all compute resources despite their interruption risk, overlooking the need for reliable TCP communication in a production migration.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
An Application Load Balancer operates at Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) but can also handle TCP traffic via Network Load Balancer (NLB) for pure TCP; however, the question specifies TCP communication, and ALB can still be used with TCP listeners if the application uses HTTP/HTTPS over TCP. Managed services like RDS automate Multi-AZ deployments with synchronous replication and automatic failover, ensuring high availability without manual intervention. The combination of managed services and load balancing reduces the need for custom clustering or health-check scripts, aligning with the goal of minimizing operational overhead.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Design for New Solutions — This question tests Design for New Solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Use managed services like Amazon RDS and Amazon ElastiCache to reduce operational overhead. — Option B is correct because using managed services like Amazon RDS and Amazon ElastiCache offloads administrative tasks such as patching, backups, and replication setup, significantly reducing operational overhead. Option E is correct because an Application Load Balancer (ALB) distributes incoming TCP traffic across multiple EC2 instances in different Availability Zones, providing high availability and fault tolerance for the application components.
What should I do if I get this SAP-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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