SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
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?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse the one-time bulk transfer capability of Snowball or S3 with the need for ongoing replication, failing to recognize that minimal downtime requires a continuous change capture mechanism like DMS CDC, not just an initial data load.
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.
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.
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 Snowball to transfer the database files to RDS.
Why it's wrong here
Snowball is for offline transfer, not ongoing replication.
- ✗
Use an RDS read replica from the on-premises database.
Why it's wrong here
RDS read replicas only work within RDS, not from on-premises.
- ✓
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication.
Why this is correct
DMS supports full load and CDC replication with minimal downtime.
- ✗
Export the database to Amazon S3 and import into RDS.
Why it's wrong here
This method does not support ongoing replication and causes downtime.
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