Question 224 of 1,746
Design for New SolutionshardMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question

This SAP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of design for new solutions. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 deploying a serverless application using AWS Lambda. The application processes high-resolution images and stores them in Amazon S3. The processing time for each image is variable, but some images require more than 15 minutes to process. Lambda has a maximum execution time of 15 minutes. How can the company process these long-running image transformations?

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 Batch to run the image processing as a job on EC2 or Fargate.

AWS Lambda has a hard limit of 15 minutes per invocation, so images requiring more than 15 minutes cannot be processed within a single Lambda function. AWS Batch is designed for long-running, batch-oriented compute jobs and can run on EC2 or Fargate without any time limit, making it the correct choice for processing high-resolution images that exceed Lambda's timeout.

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.

  • Use AWS Step Functions to chain multiple Lambda functions, each processing a part of the image.

    Why it's wrong here

    If the image processing is not easily parallelizable, this won't help; also each Lambda still limited to 15 min.

  • Use AWS Batch to run the image processing as a job on EC2 or Fargate.

    Why this is correct

    AWS Batch can run jobs with longer execution times and can scale based on demand.

    Related concept

    Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

  • Use Amazon SQS to queue the images and have Lambda poll the queue; the Lambda function can process one image per invocation.

    Why it's wrong here

    Lambda still has a 15-minute limit per invocation.

  • Increase the Lambda timeout to 20 minutes.

    Why it's wrong here

    Lambda maximum timeout is 15 minutes.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates assume Step Functions can extend Lambda's execution time by chaining functions, but each Lambda invocation still has a hard 15-minute limit, and Step Functions does not override that service quota.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

AWS Batch automatically provisions and scales compute resources (EC2 instances or Fargate tasks) based on the job's resource requirements, and jobs can run for hours without interruption. For image processing, you can define a job definition that specifies the Docker container, memory, vCPUs, and environment variables, and then submit jobs to a queue; Batch handles retries, scheduling, and cost optimization via Spot instances. This contrasts with Lambda's stateless, ephemeral execution model, which is unsuitable for workloads exceeding the 15-minute timeout.

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

A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.

Quick reference

AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison

Storage ClassMin DurationRetrievalUse Case
S3 StandardNoneImmediateFrequently accessed data
S3 Standard-IA30 daysImmediateInfrequent access, rapid retrieval
S3 One Zone-IA30 daysImmediateNon-critical infrequent data
S3 Intelligent-TieringNoneImmediate–hoursUnknown or changing access patterns
S3 Glacier Instant90 daysMillisecondsArchive with instant retrieval
S3 Glacier Flexible90 daysMinutes–hoursArchive, flexible retrieval
S3 Glacier Deep Archive180 daysHoursLong-term compliance archive

What to study next

Got this wrong? Here's your next step.

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

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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: Use AWS Batch to run the image processing as a job on EC2 or Fargate. — AWS Lambda has a hard limit of 15 minutes per invocation, so images requiring more than 15 minutes cannot be processed within a single Lambda function. AWS Batch is designed for long-running, batch-oriented compute jobs and can run on EC2 or Fargate without any time limit, making it the correct choice for processing high-resolution images that exceed Lambda's timeout.

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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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.