SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company runs a customer-facing web application on EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. The application stores session data in an RDS MySQL database. Recently, they have been experiencing increased latency and occasional timeouts during peak hours. The operations team has observed that the RDS instance's CPU utilization is consistently above 80%, and the number of database connections is near the maximum allowed. The application code is not easily modifiable in the short term. The company needs a solution that reduces the load on the database with minimal changes to the application. What should a solutions architect recommend?
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
✓
Implement an Amazon ElastiCache cluster and modify the application to cache frequent queries.
Implementing an in-memory cache like Amazon ElastiCache can offload frequent read queries from the database, reducing CPU utilization and the number of connections. This can be achieved with minimal code changes if the application uses caching libraries or can be configured to use a caching layer for session data or frequently accessed data. Option A is incorrect: increasing the RDS instance size might temporarily alleviate CPU pressure but does not reduce the number of connections and is not a scalable solution; it also requires downtime for resizing. Option B is incorrect: creating an RDS read replica offloads read traffic but does not reduce write load or the connection count on the primary instance; session data typically involves both reads and writes, so a read replica would not significantly help with the primary's CPU or connection limit. Option D is incorrect: migrating to Amazon Aurora Multi-AZ provides better performance and high availability, but the migration process is not minimal and does not directly reduce the load on the database; it also does not address the connection limit issue.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the RDS instance size to a larger instance type.
Why it's wrong here
Scaling up helps temporarily but is not cost-effective and does not solve the root cause.
- ✗
Create an RDS read replica and offload read traffic to it.
Why it's wrong here
Read replicas don't reduce write load or connection count; they also require application changes to route reads.
- ✓
Implement an Amazon ElastiCache cluster and modify the application to cache frequent queries.
Why this is correct
Caching reduces database load and can be done with minimal code changes if using a caching abstraction.
- ✗
Migrate the database to Amazon Aurora with Multi-AZ.
Why it's wrong here
Aurora improves performance but still has connection limits; migration takes time and effort.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
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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.