SAP-C02 Practice Question: Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization
A company is migrating a stateful application that uses local storage on EC2. They want to modernize to a stateless architecture using Amazon EFS for shared storage. What is the best approach to migrate the existing data?
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
✓
Copy data from local storage to EFS using AWS DataSync during a maintenance window
The best approach is to use AWS DataSync to copy data from the local EC2 instance storage to Amazon EFS during a maintenance window, then reconfigure the application to use EFS as shared storage. Option A (AWS FSx for Lustre with S3) is overcomplicated and not appropriate for a simple shared file system migration to EFS. Option C (detach EBS volume and attach to new instance) is not stateless and does not enable shared access. Option D (EBS snapshot restore) retains the stateful nature and does not provide shared storage.
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 AWS Fsx for Lustre with S3 as data repository
Why it's wrong here
FSx for Lustre serves high-performance parallel HPC workloads and links to an S3 data repository; it presents no POSIX NFS mount that EC2 fleets can share as EFS does. It is tempting when bulk S3-resident datasets need scratch throughput, but the stem requires migrating local disk data into EFS.
- ✓
Copy data from local storage to EFS using AWS DataSync during a maintenance window
Why this is correct
AWS DataSync performs incremental, scheduled or one-off copies over the network with integrity verification, moving the local EC2 data onto EFS during the maintenance window. This satisfies the constraint of preserving existing stateful data while the application becomes stateless.
- ✗
Detach the EBS volume and attach it to the new EC2 instance
Why it's wrong here
An EBS volume attaches to one EC2 instance in a single Availability Zone, so it cannot back a stateless fleet sharing EFS across zones. Reattaching suits lifting a volume between instances during a like-for-like migration, not converting local storage into a shared, multi-AZ POSIX file system.
- ✗
Create an EBS snapshot and restore it on the new instance
Why it's wrong here
An EBS snapshot captures block-level data from an EBS volume, not from instance local storage, and restoring it recreates an EBS volume rather than populating EFS. It would be correct when migrating data between EBS-backed instances.
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.