Amazon Web Services Updated SAP-C02 Exam Questions and Answers by zachariah

The best option is to use Amazon SQS and AWS Lambda to create a serverless order processing application. Amazon SQS is a fully managed message queue service that can decouple the order receiving and processing components, making the application more scalable and fault-tolerant. AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that can automatically scale to handle the incoming messages from the SQS queue and process them according to the business logic. AWS Lambda can also integrate with Amazon DynamoDB to store the processed orders in a fast and flexible NoSQL database. This approach eliminates the need to provision, manage, or scale any servers or containers, and reduces the operational overhead and cost.

Option A is not reliable because using an EC2-hosted database to receive the orders introduces a single point of failure and a scalability bottleneck. EC2 instances also require more management and configuration than serverless services.

Option C is not reliable because using AWS Step Functions to receive the orders adds unnecessary complexity and cost to the application. AWS Step Functions is a service that coordinates multiple AWS services into a serverless workflow, but it is not designed to handle high-volume, sporadic, or unpredictable traffic patterns. AWS Step Functions also charges per state transition, which can be expensive for a large number of orders. Launching an ECS container to process each order also requires more resources and management than invoking a Lambda function.

Option D is not reliable because using Amazon Kinesis Data Streams to receive the orders is not suitable for this use case. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is a service that enables real-time processing of streaming data at scale, but it is not meant for asynchronous message queuing. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams requires consumers to poll the data from the stream, which can introduce latency and complexity. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams also charges per shard hour, which can be expensive for a sporadic traffic pattern.

Amazon SQS

AWS Lambda

Amazon DynamoDB

AWS Step Functions

Amazon ECS

The company’s goal is to modernize the application while minimizing operational overhead. The current architecture relies heavily on self-managed EC2 instances for web serving, APIs, search, and relational data storage. This increases operational burden related to patching, scaling, availability, and troubleshooting.

Option B replaces self-managed components with fully managed AWS services that are purpose-built for each workload type. Hosting the static web application on Amazon S3 with Amazon CloudFront removes the need to manage web servers such as NGINX and provides global content delivery with built-in scalability and high availability. Migrating the search data to Amazon OpenSearch Service eliminates the need to manage an EC2-based OpenSearch node, providing a managed search service with built-in scaling, patching, and monitoring. Migrating PostgreSQL to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL removes the operational overhead of managing database instances on EC2 and provides managed backups, high availability, and performance optimizations. Running APIs on AWS App Runner further reduces operational effort by abstracting infrastructure management, scaling, and deployment, allowing the team to focus on application code.

Option A still requires running and operating containerized databases and search engines, which is not recommended and does not significantly reduce operational overhead compared to EC2-based deployments. Databases and OpenSearch are better consumed as managed services rather than as containers.

Option C introduces Amazon EKS, which adds significant operational complexity. Even with managed node groups, Kubernetes requires cluster management, networking configuration, upgrades, and ongoing operational expertise. This contradicts the requirement for the least operational overhead.

Option D attempts to run databases and OpenSearch on AWS App Runner. App Runner is designed for stateless web services and APIs, not for stateful services such as databases or search engines. This architecture is not aligned with AWS best practices and would introduce reliability and operational challenges.

Therefore, using managed services such as Amazon CloudFront, Amazon S3, Amazon OpenSearch Service, Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, and AWS App Runner provides the most modern architecture with the least operational overhead.