SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is migrating a legacy on-premises application to AWS. The application uses a monolithic architecture and a MySQL database. The company wants to refactor the application into microservices and use a NoSQL database for better scalability. The new application will be deployed on Amazon EKS. The database must be highly available and support automatic scaling. Which database service 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
✓
Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon DynamoDB is a NoSQL database that supports high availability and automatic scaling. Option A: Amazon Aurora Serverless is a relational database, not NoSQL. Option C: Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility) is a NoSQL database but is MongoDB-compatible; DynamoDB is more fully managed and serverless and better suited for microservices on EKS. Option D: Amazon RDS for MySQL with Multi-AZ deployment is relational and not NoSQL.
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 Aurora Serverless
Why it's wrong here
Aurora is relational, not NoSQL.
- ✓
Amazon DynamoDB
Why this is correct
DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database with high availability and auto scaling.
- ✗
Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility)
Why it's wrong here
Amazon DocumentDB is a document database, which, while NoSQL, is not the most direct choice for general "better scalability" and "automatic scaling" when migrating from a relational database like MySQL and refactoring into microservices, without a specific requirement for a document data model. It is tempting because it offers NoSQL capabilities, high availability, and automatic scaling for storage. DocumentDB would be the correct choice if the new microservices application specifically required a document data model or MongoDB compatibility, leveraging its flexible schema for document-centric workloads.
- ✗
Amazon RDS for MySQL with Multi-AZ deployment
Why it's wrong here
RDS is relational, not NoSQL.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,660 original SAP-C02 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. 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.