SAP-C02 Practice Question: Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization
A company is migrating its on-premises data warehouse to AWS. The data warehouse contains 50 TB of data and is used for complex analytical queries. The company wants a fully managed, petabyte-scale solution that can handle the queries efficiently. Which AWS service should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that Amazon S3 with Athena is a direct replacement for a data warehouse, overlooking the performance and management features of Redshift.
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 Redshift
Amazon Redshift is a fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse service that uses columnar storage and massively parallel processing to handle complex analytical queries efficiently. It is designed for exactly this use case, making it the correct choice for migrating an on-premises data warehouse.
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 RDS for PostgreSQL
Why it's wrong here
Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL is a relational database service, not a data warehouse. It can handle analytical queries but does not scale to petabyte-scale as efficiently as Redshift. It lacks the columnar storage and MPP architecture optimized for data warehousing, making it unsuitable for this large-scale analytical workload.
- ✗
Amazon S3 with Amazon Athena
Why it's wrong here
Amazon S3 with Athena can be used for ad-hoc queries on data in S3, but it is not a fully managed data warehouse with the performance and concurrency features of Redshift. For a 50 TB data warehouse with complex queries, Redshift provides better performance and manageability, including workload management and concurrency scaling.
- ✓
Amazon Redshift
Why this is correct
Amazon Redshift is a fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse service designed for complex analytical queries. It uses columnar storage and massively parallel processing to deliver high performance. It is the ideal choice for migrating an on-premises data warehouse to AWS.
- ✗
Amazon DynamoDB
Why it's wrong here
Amazon DynamoDB is a NoSQL key-value and document database designed for transactional workloads at scale. It is not optimized for complex analytical queries or data warehousing. Using DynamoDB for a data warehouse would require significant redesign and would not provide the required analytical capabilities.
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
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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.