SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A small business wants to host a simple static website on AWS. The website consists of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images. The company expects low traffic and wants to minimize costs. The website must be highly available and load quickly for users globally. Which solution 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
✓
Store the website files in an S3 bucket configured for static website hosting, and use Amazon CloudFront as a CDN.
S3 static website hosting with CloudFront provides low cost, high availability, and global low latency. Option B is wrong because Lightsail with a load balancer and two instances is more expensive and overkill for a simple static site. Option C is wrong because a single EC2 instance is not highly available and costs more than S3. Option D is wrong because Elastic Beanstalk is designed for dynamic web apps, not static sites, and a single EC2 instance lacks high availability.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Store the website files in an S3 bucket configured for static website hosting, and use Amazon CloudFront as a CDN.
Why this is correct
S3 static website hosting serves the HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images without servers, and CloudFront caches content at edge locations for fast global delivery and high availability. This meets the low-traffic, minimal-cost, globally performant requirements.
- ✗
Host the website on Amazon Lightsail with a load balancer and two instances.
Why it's wrong here
Lightsail instances plus a load balancer bill hourly and cannot match S3 static website hosting with CloudFront, which serves global users from edge locations at minimal cost. Lightsail suits small applications needing persistent compute, not static HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images where no server-side processing is required.
- ✗
Host the website on a single EC2 instance running Apache web server, with an Elastic IP address.
Why it's wrong here
A single EC2 instance with an Elastic IP is a regional, single point of failure, so it cannot satisfy the global low-latency and high-availability requirements. EC2 suits dynamic applications requiring server-side compute; static content belongs in S3 fronted by CloudFront, which caches at edge locations worldwide.
- ✗
Deploy the website on AWS Elastic Beanstalk with a single EC2 instance.
Why it's wrong here
Elastic Beanstalk with a single EC2 instance lacks global content delivery; it serves all traffic from one AWS region, failing the requirement for fast load times globally. This option is tempting because Elastic Beanstalk simplifies deployment and scaling for dynamic web applications, and would be correct if the business needed a managed environment for a backend application with variable traffic.
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 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.