A company currently stores 5 TB of data in on-premises block storage systems. The company's current storage solution provides limited space for additional data. The company runs applications on premises that must be able to retrieve frequently accessed data with low latency. The company requires a cloud-based storage solution.
Which solution will meet these requirements with the MOST operational efficiency?
A. Use Amazon S3 File Gateway. Integrate S3 File Gateway with the on-premises applications to store and directly retrieve files by using the SMB file system.
B. Use an AWS Storage Gateway Volume Gateway with cached volumes as iSCSI targets.
C. Use an AWS Storage Gateway Volume Gateway with stored volumes as iSCSI targets.
D. Use an AWS Storage Gateway Tape Gateway. Integrate Tape Gateway with the on-premises applications to store virtual tapes in Amazon S3.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: The company uses on-premises block storage and needs a cloud-based solution while maintaining low-latency access for frequently accessed data and reducing on-premises storage requirements. AWS Storage Gateway Volume Gateway with cached volumes stores the primary data in Amazon S3 and caches frequently accessed data locally, presenting block storage over iSCSI. S3 File Gateway is file-based rather than block storage, stored volumes keep the full dataset on premises (which does not address limited local capacity), and Tape Gateway is intended for backup/archive, not active application storage.
Question 30
A company is creating a prototype of an ecommerce website on AWS. The website consists of an Application Load Balancer, an Auto Scaling group of Amazon EC2 instances for web servers, and an Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance that runs with the Single-AZ configuration.
The website is slow to respond during searches of the product catalog. The product catalog is a group of tables in the MySQL database that the company does not update frequently. A solutions architect has determined that the CPU utilization on the DB instance is high when product catalog searches occur.
What should the solutions architect recommend to improve the performance of the website during searches of the product catalog?
A. Migrate the product catalog to an Amazon Redshift database. Use the COPY command to load the product catalog tables.
B. Implement an Amazon ElastiCache for Redis cluster to cache the product catalog. Use lazy loading to populate the cache.
C. Add an additional scaling policy to the Auto Scaling group to launch additional EC2 instances when database response is slow.
D. Turn on the Multi-AZ configuration for the DB instance. Configure the EC2 instances to throttle the product catalog queries that are sent to the database.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: The bottleneck is high CPU utilization on the RDS MySQL instance during frequent product catalog searches. Because the catalog changes infrequently and is read-heavy, caching the catalog in Amazon ElastiCache for Redis is the most effective way to offload repeated reads from the database. Lazy loading populates the cache on first access and serves subsequent requests from memory, reducing database CPU and improving response time. Redshift is an analytics data warehouse, not appropriate for serving low-latency ecommerce catalog lookups. Adding more EC2 instances does not reduce database load, and enabling Multi-AZ improves availability rather than read scaling or query performance.
Question 31
A company is launching a new application that requires a structured database to store user profiles, application settings, and transactional data. The database must be scalable with application traffic and must offer backups.
Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?
A. Deploy a self-managed database on Amazon EC2 instances by using open source software. Use Spot Instances for cost optimization. Configure automated backups to Amazon S3.
B. Use Amazon RDS. Use on-demand capacity mode for the database with General Purpose SSD storage. Configure automatic backups with a retention period of 7 days.
C. Use Amazon Aurora Serverless for the database. Use serverless capacity scaling. Configure automated backups to Amazon S3.
D. Deploy a self-managed NoSQL database on Amazon EC2 instances. Use Reserved Instances for cost optimization. Configure automated backups directly to Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation: Amazon Aurora Serverless is a fully managed relational database that automatically scales capacity with application traffic, making it well suited for variable workloads while avoiding the operational overhead of self-managed databases. It provides automated backups by default. Option A relies on Spot Instances, which are inappropriate for persistent database workloads. Option D uses NoSQL despite the requirement for a structured relational database. Option B is managed and includes backups, but for traffic that needs to scale with application demand, Aurora Serverless is generally the more cost-effective fit due to automatic serverless scaling.
Question 32
A company runs an on-premises application on a Kubernetes cluster. The company recently added millions of new customers. The company's existing on-premises infrastructure is unable to handle the large number of new customers. The company needs to migrate the on-premises application to the AWS Cloud.
The company will migrate to an Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) cluster. The company does not want to manage the underlying compute infrastructure for the new architecture on AWS.
Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?
A. Use a self-managed node to supply compute capacity. Deploy the application to the new EKS cluster.
B. Use managed node groups to supply compute capacity. Deploy the application to the new EKS cluster.
C. Use AWS Fargate to supply compute capacity. Create a Fargate profile. Use the Fargate profile to deploy the application.
D. Use managed node groups with Karpenter to supply compute capacity. Deploy the application to the new EKS cluster.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation: AWS Fargate for Amazon EKS provides serverless compute for Kubernetes pods, eliminating the need to provision, manage, or scale EC2 worker nodes. Creating a Fargate profile determines which pods run on Fargate, resulting in the least operational overhead compared with self-managed nodes, managed node groups, or managed node groups with Karpenter, all of which still involve EC2 infrastructure management.
Question 33
A streaming media company is rebuilding its infrastructure to accommodate increasing demand for video content that users consume daily.
The company needs to process terabyte-sized videos to block some content in the videos. Video processing can take up to 20 minutes.
The company needs a solution that will scale with demand and remain cost-effective.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
A. Use AWS Lambda functions to process videos. Store video metadata in Amazon DynamoDB. Store video content in Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering.
B. Use Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) and AWS Fargate to implement microservices to process videos. Store video metadata in Amazon Aurora. Store video content in Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering.
C. Use Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB) to process videos. Store video content in Amazon S3 Standard. Use Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) for queuing and to decouple processing tasks.
D. Deploy a containerized video processing application on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) on Amazon EC2. Store video metadata in Amazon RDS in a single Availability Zone. Store video content in Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: Lambda cannot process a single invocation for up to 20 minutes, so A is not viable. Fargate is well suited for long-running containerized video-processing workloads, scales without managing servers, and is cost-effective for variable demand. S3 Intelligent-Tiering reduces storage costs for large video objects with changing access patterns. C has a good decoupling pattern with SQS but requires EC2 management and uses S3 Standard instead of a more cost-optimized storage class. D uses Glacier Deep Archive, which is inappropriate for active video processing, and a single-AZ RDS deployment reduces availability.
Question 34
A company hosts a multi-tier web application that uses an Amazon Aurora MySQL DB cluster for storage. The application tier is hosted on Amazon EC2 instances. The company's IT security guidelines mandate that the database credentials be encrypted and rotated every 14 days.
What should a solutions architect do to meet this requirement with the LEAST operational effort?
A. Create a new AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) encryption key. Use AWS Secrets Manager to create a new secret that uses the KMS key with the appropriate credentials. Associate the secret with the Aurora DB cluster. Configure a custom rotation period of 14 days.
B. Create two parameters in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store: one for the user name as a string parameter and one that uses the SecureString type for the password. Select AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) encryption for the password parameter, and load these parameters in the application tier. Implement an AWS Lambda function that rotates the password every 14 days.
C. Store a file that contains the credentials in an AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) encrypted Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) file system. Mount the EFS file system in all EC2 instances of the application tier. Restrict the access to the file on the file system so that the application can read the file and that only super users can modify the file. Implement an AWS Lambda function that rotates the key in Aurora every 14 days and writes new credentials into the file.
D. Store a file that contains the credentials in an AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) encrypted Amazon S3 bucket that the application uses to load the credentials. Download the file to the application regularly to ensure that the correct credentials are used. Implement an AWS Lambda function that rotates the Aurora credentials every 14 days and uploads these credentials to the file in the S3 bucket.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: A
Explanation: AWS Secrets Manager is the managed service designed to securely store, encrypt (using AWS KMS), and automatically rotate database credentials. It has native integration with Amazon Aurora and supports configuring a custom rotation schedule such as every 14 days, minimizing operational effort. The other options require building and maintaining custom Lambda-based rotation logic or storing credentials in less appropriate locations.
Question 35
A solutions architect is creating an application that will handle batch processing of large amounts of data. The input data will be held in Amazon S3 and the output data will be stored in a different S3 bucket. For processing, the application will transfer the data over the network between multiple Amazon EC2 instances.
What should the solutions architect do to reduce the overall data transfer costs?
A. Place all the EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group.
B. Place all the EC2 instances in the same AWS Region.
C. Place all the EC2 instances in the same Availability Zone.
D. Place all the EC2 instances in private subnets in multiple Availability Zones.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation: The largest avoidable transfer cost described is the network traffic between multiple EC2 instances during batch processing. Data transfer between EC2 instances in the same Availability Zone is free, whereas inter-AZ data transfer is charged. S3 to EC2 transfers within the same Region are generally not the cost driver here, and you cannot choose an S3 bucket's AZ. Therefore, placing all EC2 instances in the same Availability Zone minimizes the inter-instance data transfer costs.
Question 36
A company's software development team needs an Amazon RDS Multi-AZ cluster. The RDS cluster will serve as a backend for a desktop client that is deployed on premises. The desktop client requires direct connectivity to the RDS cluster.
The company must give the development team the ability to connect to the cluster by using the client when the team is in the office.
Which solution provides the required connectivity MOST securely?
A. Create a VPC and two public subnets. Create the RDS cluster in the public subnets. Use AWS Site-to-Site VPN with a customer gateway in the company's office.
B. Create a VPC and two private subnets. Create the RDS cluster in the private subnets. Use AWS Site-to-Site VPN with a customer gateway in the company's office.
C. Create a VPC and two private subnets. Create the RDS cluster in the private subnets. Use RDS security groups to allow the company's office IP ranges to access the cluster.
D. Create a VPC and two public subnets. Create the RDS cluster in the public subnets. Create a cluster user for each developer. Use RDS security groups to allow the users to access the cluster.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: Amazon RDS should be deployed in private subnets for security. To allow on-premises desktop clients in the office to access the database securely, establish an AWS Site-to-Site VPN between the office (customer gateway) and the VPC. This provides private, encrypted connectivity without exposing the database publicly. Options A and D place the database in public subnets, which is less secure. Option C allows IPs in security groups but does not provide private network connectivity to resources in private subnets.
Question 37
A company is planning to migrate a legacy application to AWS. The application currently uses NFS to communicate to an on-premises storage solution to store application data. The application cannot be modified to use any other communication protocols other than NFS for this purpose.
Which storage solution should a solutions architect recommend for use after the migration?
A. AWS DataSync
B. Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)
C. Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS)
D. Amazon EMR File System (Amazon EMRFS)
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation: Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) provides a fully managed, scalable NFS file system that EC2 instances can mount using the NFS protocol. Since the application cannot be modified and must continue using NFS, EFS is the appropriate replacement. AWS DataSync is a data transfer service, Amazon EBS is block storage (not NFS), and Amazon EMRFS is a Hadoop/Spark interface to S3 for EMR, not a general NFS file system.
Question 38
A company runs database workloads on AWS that are the backend for the company's customer portals. The company runs a Multi-AZ database cluster on Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL.
The company needs to implement a 30-day backup retention policy. The company currently has both automated RDS backups and manual RDS backups. The company wants to maintain both types of existing RDS backups that are less than 30 days old.
Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?
A. Configure the RDS backup retention policy to 30 days for automated backups by using AWS Backup. Manually delete manual backups that are older than 30 days.
B. Disable RDS automated backups. Delete automated backups and manual backups that are older than 30 days. Configure the RDS backup retention policy to 30 days for automated backups.
C. Configure the RDS backup retention policy to 30 days for automated backups. Manually delete manual backups that are older than 30 days.
D. Disable RDS automated backups. Delete automated backups and manual backups that are older than 30 days automatically by using AWS CloudFormation. Configure the RDS backup retention policy to 30 days for automated backups.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation: Amazon RDS natively supports configuring automated backup retention up to 35 days, so setting the retention period to 30 days satisfies the automated backup requirement without introducing AWS Backup. Manual snapshots are retained until explicitly deleted, so to enforce a 30-day retention policy while preserving existing manual backups younger than 30 days, manually delete manual backups older than 30 days. This is the most cost-effective option because it avoids the added management layer of AWS Backup and unnecessary complexity in the other options.
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