SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is migrating its on-premises Oracle database to Amazon RDS for Oracle. The database is 2 TB in size and has a 100 Mbps internet connection. The migration must be completed within a week and have minimal downtime. Which AWS service should the company use to transfer the initial database dump to AWS?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently assume a direct upload to S3 or Snowball is faster for large datasets, but they overlook the critical requirement of minimal downtime, which only DMS with ongoing replication can satisfy by keeping the source database online during migration.
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
✓
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication to migrate the data with minimal downtime.
AWS DMS with ongoing replication (change data capture) is the correct choice because it allows the initial full load of the 2 TB database to be migrated while continuously capturing and applying changes from the source Oracle database. This minimizes downtime to a brief cutover window, meeting the requirement of minimal downtime. The 100 Mbps internet connection is sufficient for the initial load over a week (2 TB at 100 Mbps ≈ 2.3 days theoretical), and DMS handles the schema conversion and data transfer natively without requiring manual dump files.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Upload the database dump directly to an S3 bucket using multipart upload.
Why it's wrong here
A 2 TB database over 100 Mbps would take over 2 days just to upload, and downtime would be significant.
- ✓
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication to migrate the data with minimal downtime.
Why this is correct
DMS can perform a full load and then continuously replicate changes, allowing a cutover with minimal downtime.
- ✗
Use AWS Snowball Edge to transfer the data offline.
Why it's wrong here
Snowball Edge is for large offline transfers but shipping and processing can take multiple days, not meeting the one-week timeline.
- ✗
Use S3 Transfer Acceleration to speed up the upload of the dump file.
Why it's wrong here
Transfer Acceleration improves upload speed but still limited by the 100 Mbps internet connection.
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Same concept, more angles
3 more ways this is tested on SAP-C02
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company plans to migrate a relational database to Amazon RDS for MySQL. They need to minimize downtime during the migration. The source database is running on-premises. Which strategy should they use?
medium- ✓ A.Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication.
- B.Use AWS Snowball to transfer the data.
- C.Use mysqldump to export the database and import into RDS.
- D.Create a read replica of the on-premises database in RDS.
Why A: AWS DMS with ongoing replication allows the source database to remain operational during migration, minimizing downtime. Option B is incorrect because AWS Snowball is designed for large-scale offline data transfer, not for ongoing replication to minimize downtime. Option C is incorrect because mysqldump requires taking a backup which causes downtime during the export/import process. Option D is incorrect because a read replica can only be created from a source that is already in RDS, not from an on-premises database.
Variation 2. A company wants to migrate an on-premises relational database to Amazon RDS for MySQL with minimal downtime. The database is 500 GB in size. Which AWS service should be used for the initial data load and ongoing replication?
easy- A.Use AWS Snowball to transfer the database files to RDS.
- B.Use an RDS read replica from the on-premises database.
- ✓ C.Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication.
- D.Export the database to Amazon S3 and import into RDS.
Why C: AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication is the correct choice because it supports both a full load of the 500 GB database and continuous change data capture (CDC) using the MySQL binary log (binlog) to replicate ongoing changes with minimal downtime. DMS can perform the initial load while the source remains operational, then switch to CDC to keep the target in sync until cutover.
Variation 3. Drag and drop the steps to migrate an on-premises MySQL database to Amazon RDS using AWS DMS in the correct order.
medium- ✓ A.Create replication instance, then create source and target endpoints, then create migration task, then start migration task, then cut over after validation
- B.Create replication instance, then create migration task, then create source and target endpoints, then start migration task, then cut over after validation
- C.Create replication instance, then create source and target endpoints, then cut over after validation, then create migration task, then start migration task
- D.Create replication instance, then create source and target endpoints, then start migration task, then create migration task, then cut over after validation
Why A: First create the replication instance, then endpoints, then the migration task, start it, and finally cut over.
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.