SAP-C02 Practice Question: Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization
A company is migrating a legacy monolithic application to AWS. The application has a tightly coupled architecture and uses a relational database with complex stored procedures. The company wants to modernize the application by breaking it into microservices but wants to minimize the risk of a complete rewrite. Which approach should be taken?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is thinking that rehosting or replatforming alone constitutes modernization, when in fact they do not break the monolith into microservices or reduce coupling.
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
✓
Use the strangler fig pattern to incrementally extract microservices while keeping the monolith.
The strangler fig pattern is the correct approach because it enables incremental modernization by extracting microservices one at a time while the monolith remains operational. This reduces risk and allows for testing and validation at each step. The other options either involve high-risk full rewrites, do not achieve modernization, or simply move the monolith to managed services without architectural change.
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 the strangler fig pattern to incrementally extract microservices while keeping the monolith.
Why this is correct
The strangler fig pattern allows you to gradually replace specific functionalities of the monolith with microservices, reducing risk by not requiring a full rewrite. You can route traffic to new services while the monolith continues to handle the rest. This approach is ideal for legacy modernization because it supports incremental change and rollback if issues arise.
- ✗
Refactor the entire application into microservices using AWS Lambda and Amazon DynamoDB.
Why it's wrong here
A complete refactor to serverless microservices is high-risk and time-consuming, especially with complex stored procedures that would need to be rewritten. It does not align with minimizing risk and could introduce significant delays. This approach is too disruptive for a legacy application with tightly coupled components.
- ✗
Replatform the application to AWS Elastic Beanstalk and use Amazon RDS.
Why it's wrong here
Replatforming to Elastic Beanstalk and RDS moves the application to managed services but does not break it into microservices. It preserves the monolithic architecture and does not address the goal of modernization. This approach is more about reducing operational overhead than transforming the application architecture.
- ✗
Rehost the application on Amazon EC2 and then gradually refactor components.
Why it's wrong here
Rehosting on EC2 does not address modernization or breaking the monolith into microservices. It simply moves the problem to the cloud without reducing coupling. While it can be a first step, it does not directly meet the goal of modernizing with minimal risk; a more structured approach like the strangler pattern is needed.
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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.