- A
AWS Cloud Map for service discovery and a NAT gateway for egress
Cloud Map registers services; NAT gateway provides egress for tasks in private subnets.
- B
Amazon Route 53 for service discovery and an Application Load Balancer for egress
Why wrong: ALB is for ingress traffic, not egress.
- C
AWS Cloud Map for service discovery and an Internet Gateway for egress
Why wrong: Internet Gateway is used for resources in public subnets; tasks in private subnets need NAT.
- D
Amazon Route 53 for service discovery and VPC endpoints for egress
Why wrong: VPC endpoints are for AWS services, not external SaaS.
Question 1,083 of 1,746
SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
This SAP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of design for new solutions. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company is building a microservices architecture on Amazon ECS. Services need to communicate with each other and with external SaaS applications. The architect must ensure that service discovery is dynamic and that traffic to external services is routed through a single egress point for security and monitoring. Which combination of services should the architect use?
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
✓
AWS Cloud Map for service discovery and a NAT gateway for egress
AWS Cloud Map is the correct choice for dynamic service discovery in Amazon ECS because it allows services to register themselves with a logical service name and be discovered via DNS or API calls, which is ideal for microservices that scale and change frequently. A NAT gateway provides a single, controlled egress point for outbound traffic to external SaaS applications, enabling centralized security monitoring and consistent IP address management, unlike an Internet Gateway which would expose instances directly.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
AWS Cloud Map for service discovery and a NAT gateway for egress
- ✗
Amazon Route 53 for service discovery and an Application Load Balancer for egress
Why it's wrong here
ALB is for ingress traffic, not egress.
- ✗
AWS Cloud Map for service discovery and an Internet Gateway for egress
- ✗
Amazon Route 53 for service discovery and VPC endpoints for egress
Why it's wrong here
VPC endpoints are for AWS services, not external SaaS.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is confusing the roles of an Internet Gateway (which allows direct bidirectional internet access) with a NAT gateway (which provides controlled outbound-only egress), and assuming Route 53 can handle dynamic service discovery when it lacks the necessary registration and health-check integration for ephemeral containers.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
AWS Cloud Map uses a combination of DNS (A and SRV records) and health checks to provide real-time service discovery; when an ECS task registers, Cloud Map creates a DNS record with a TTL as low as 1 second, ensuring clients always resolve to healthy instances. A NAT gateway operates at layer 3/4, translating private IPs to a single public IP, which simplifies allowlisting for external SaaS providers and enables traffic logging via VPC Flow Logs for security analysis.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
Visual reference
What to study next
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SAP-C02 question test?
Design for New Solutions — This question tests Design for New Solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: AWS Cloud Map for service discovery and a NAT gateway for egress — AWS Cloud Map is the correct choice for dynamic service discovery in Amazon ECS because it allows services to register themselves with a logical service name and be discovered via DNS or API calls, which is ideal for microservices that scale and change frequently. A NAT gateway provides a single, controlled egress point for outbound traffic to external SaaS applications, enabling centralized security monitoring and consistent IP address management, unlike an Internet Gateway which would expose instances directly.
What should I do if I get this SAP-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026
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