SAP-C02 Refactor / Re-architect Practice Question
A company is migrating a legacy monolithic application to AWS. The application has tightly coupled components and high latency between them. The company wants to modernize the application into a microservices architecture. Which migration strategy should the company use?
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
✓
Refactor / Re-architect
The refactor/re-architect strategy involves re-architecting the application into microservices. Option A is wrong because repurchase involves buying a new product, not re-architecting. Option B is wrong because rehost (lift-and-shift) does not modernize. Option D is wrong because replatform (lift-tinker-and-shift) makes minor optimizations but does not change architecture.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Repurchase
Why it's wrong here
Repurchase replaces the application with a different commercial product, which does not decompose tightly coupled components into microservices. It is tempting when a SaaS alternative exists, but the stem requires refactoring the existing monolith into independently deployable services, re-architecting its internal structure.
- ✗
Rehost
Why it's wrong here
Rehost lifts the monolith unchanged onto AWS, preserving the tight coupling and high inter-component latency. It is tempting because rehosting is fast and low-risk, and suits migrations where no code change is wanted, but modernising into microservices demands re-architecting, which rehosting never performs.
- ✓
Refactor / Re-architect
Why this is correct
Refactoring re-architects the monolith into independently deployable microservices, replacing in-process calls with lightweight APIs or asynchronous messaging. This directly resolves the stem's tightly coupled components and high inter-component latency, which lift-and-shift or replatform cannot address since they preserve the existing monolithic structure and coupling.
- ✗
Replatform
Why it's wrong here
Replatform makes limited adjustments, such as moving to managed services, without decomposing the monolith's tightly coupled components. It is tempting because it yields some cloud benefit with modest effort, but microservices require re-architecting the application into independently deployable services, which replatforming does not do.
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