Quiz SAP-C02: Amazon AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional

It describes a solution that uses an Application Load Balancer (ALB) and an Auto Scaling group for the
MQTT broker. The ALB distributes incoming traffic across the instances in the Auto Scaling group and
allows for automatic scaling based on incoming traffic. The use of an alias record in Route 53 allows
for easy updates to the DNS record without changing the IP address. This solution improves the
reliability of the MQTT broker by allowing it to automatically scale based on incoming traffic,
reducing the likelihood of lost data due to broker overload.
Reference:
https://aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/applicationloadbalancer/
https://aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/
https://aws.amazon.com/route53/

AWS DataSync can be used to transfer the sequencing data to Amazon S3, which is a more efficient
and faster method than using Snowball Edge devices. Once the data is in S3, S3 events can trigger an
AWS Lambda function that starts an AWS Step Functions workflow. The Docker images can be stored
in Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR) and AWS Batch can be used to run the container
and process the sequencing data.

The company should purchase the same Reserved Instances for an additional 3-year term with All
Upfront payment. The company should purchase a 3-year Compute Savings Plan with All Upfront
payment in the management account to cover any additional compute costs. This solution will
provide the company with the most cost savings because Reserved Instances and Savings Plans are
both pricing models that offer significant discounts compared to On-Demand pricing. Reserved
Instances are commitments to use a specific instance type and size in a single Region for a one- or
three-year term. You can choose between three payment options: No Upfront, Partial Upfront, or All
Upfront. The more you pay upfront, the greater the discount1. Savings Plans are flexible pricing
models that offer low prices on EC2 instances, Fargate, and Lambda usage, in exchange for a
commitment to a consistent amount of usage (measured in $/hour) for a one- or three-year term.
You can choose between two types of Savings Plans: Compute Savings Plans and EC2 Instance
Savings Plans. Compute Savings Plans apply to any EC2 instance regardless of Region, instance family,
operating system, or tenancy, including those that are part of EMR, ECS, or EKS clusters, or launched
by Fargate or Lambda. EC2 Instance Savings Plans apply to a specific instance family within a Region
and provide the most savings2. By purchasing the same Reserved Instances for an additional 3-year
term with All Upfront payment, the company can lock in the lowest possible price for its EC2
instances that run continuously for 3 years. By purchasing a 3-year Compute Savings Plan with All
Upfront payment in the management account, the company can benefit from additional discounts on
any other compute usage across its member accounts.
The other options are not correct because:
Purchasing a 1-year Compute Savings Plan with No Upfront payment in each member account would
not provide as much cost savings as purchasing a 3-year Compute Savings Plan with All Upfront
payment in the management account. A 1-year term offers lower discounts than a 3-year term, and a
No Upfront payment option offers lower discounts than an All Upfront payment option. Also,
purchasing a Savings Plan in each member account would not allow the company to share the
benefits of unused Savings Plan discounts across its organization.
Purchasing a 3-year EC2 Instance Savings Plan with No Upfront payment in the management account
to cover EC2 costs in each AWS Region would not provide as much cost savings as purchasing
Reserved Instances for an additional 3-year term with All Upfront payment. An EC2 Instance Savings
Plan offers lower discounts than Reserved Instances for the same instance family and Region. Also, a
No Upfront payment option offers lower discounts than an All Upfront payment option.
Purchasing a 3-year EC2 Instance Savings Plan with All Upfront payment in each member account
would not provide as much flexibility or cost savings as purchasing a 3-year Compute Savings Plan
with All Upfront payment in the management account. An EC2 Instance Savings Plan applies only to a
specific instance family within a Region and does not cover Fargate or Lambda usage. Also,
purchasing aSavings Plan in each member account would not allow the company to share the
benefits of unused Savings Plan discounts across its organization.
Reference:
https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/reserved-instances/
https://aws.amazon.com/savingsplans/

A DAX cluster can be deployed with one or two nodes for development or test workloads. One- and
two-node clusters are not fault-tolerant, and we don't recommend using fewer than three nodes for
production use. If a one- or two-node cluster encounters software or hardware errors, the cluster can
become unavailable or lose cached data.A DAX cluster can be deployed with one or two nodes for
development or test workloads. One- and two-node clusters are not fault-tolerant, and we don't
recommend using fewer than three nodes for production use. If a one- or two-node cluster
encounters software or hardware errors, the cluster can become unavailable or lose cached data.
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/DAX.concepts.cluster.html

Https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/storage/new-enhancements-for-moving-data-between-amazon-fsx-
for-lustre-and-amazon-s3/

Https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/routing-to-elb-load-balancer.html
Create a Network Load Balancer (NLB) and expose the assigned TCP port. Assign the Elastic IP
addresses to the NLB for each Availability Zone. Create a target group and register the EC2 instances
with the NLB. Create a new A (alias) record set named my.service.com, and assign the NLB DNS name
to the record set. As it uses the NLB as the resource in the A-record, traffic will be routed through the
NLB, and it will automatically route the traffic to the healthy instances based on the health checks
and also it provides the fixed address assignments as the other companies can add the NLB's Elastic
IP addresses to their allow lists.

To migrate an on-premises SFTP site to AWS with high availability and a set of static public IP
addresses for external vendors, the best solution is to create an AWS Transfer Family server with an
internet-facing VPC endpoint. Assigning Elastic IP addresses to each subnet and configuring the
server to store files in an Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) that spans multiple Availability Zones
ensures high availability and consistent access. This approach minimizes operational overhead by
leveraging AWS managed services and eliminates the need to manage underlying infrastructure.
AWS Documentation on AWS Transfer Family and Amazon Elastic File System provides detailed
instructions on setting up a highly available SFTP environment on AWS. This solution is in line with
AWS best practices for migrating and modernizing applications with minimal disruption and ensuring
high availability and security.

Creating a headless Aurora DB cluster in the secondary Region as part of an Aurora global database
ensures continuous, low-latency replication without running active instances in the secondary
Region.
This configuration meets the RTO and RPO requirements by allowing rapid promotion of the
secondary cluster in a failover scenario.
It also reduces operational costs compared to continuously running standby instances in the
secondary Region.
This aligns with AWS best practices for DR and cross-Region resiliency.

Https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/cross-account-access-s3/

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.
Reference:AWS documentation on application modernization best practices using managed services
to reduce operational responsibility.AWS documentation on Amazon CloudFront and Amazon S3 for
hosting static web applications.AWS documentation on Amazon OpenSearch Service as a managed
search and analytics service.AWS documentation on Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL for managed
relational databases.AWS documentation on AWS App Runner for running containerized APIs
without infrastructure management.