SAP-C02 Practice Question: Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization
A company is migrating a legacy on-premises application to AWS. The application uses a shared file system for user home directories. Which AWS service should the company use to minimize changes to the application while providing scalable, highly available file storage?
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 EFS
(Amazon EFS) is correct because it provides a scalable, fully managed NFS file system that can be mounted by multiple EC2 instances, minimizing application changes. Option A (FSx for Lustre) is for high-performance computing, not general file sharing. Option B (EBS) is block storage attached to a single instance. Option C (S3) is object storage, not a file system.
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 FSx for Lustre
Why it's wrong here
FSx for Lustre delivers a high-performance parallel file system for HPC and machine learning scratch workloads, not general home directories with standard POSIX semantics at low cost. It is tempting for its throughput, but Amazon EFS or FSx for Windows File Server fits persistent shared home directories.
- ✗
Amazon EBS
Why it's wrong here
Amazon EBS provides block volumes attached to a single EC2 instance, so it cannot serve a shared multi-instance home directory. It tempts because EBS is simple persistent storage, and it is correct for single-instance boot or data volumes, not shared file access.
- ✗
Amazon S3
Why it's wrong here
Amazon S3 is object storage accessed via HTTP APIs, not a POSIX shared file system, so the legacy application's file operations would need rewriting. It is tempting for its durability and scale, but it suits static content or backups; Amazon EFS or FSx provides the mountable shared directories required here.
- ✓
Amazon EFS
Why this is correct
Amazon EFS provides a POSIX-compliant NFSv4 file system that mounts natively on Linux, so the legacy application's existing file paths and locking semantics remain unchanged. Its managed, multi-AZ design delivers the scalable, highly available shared storage the stem requires, minimising migration effort compared with re-architecting onto object or block storage.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This SAP-C02 question is part of Courseiva's 984-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.