SAP-C02 AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional Questions and Answers

The best option is to use an Auto Scaling group, a Network Load Balancer, Amazon Route 53, and Amazon DynamoDB to create a scalable, highly available, and low-latency online game application. An Auto Scaling group can automatically adjust the number of EC2 instances based on the demand and traffic in each Region. A Network Load Balancer can distribute the incoming traffic across the EC2 instances and handle millions of requests per second. Amazon Route 53 can use latency-based routing to direct the users to the Region that provides the best performance. Amazon DynamoDB global tables can replicate the game metadata across multiple Regions, ensuring consistency and availability of thedata. This approach minimizes the operational overhead and cost, as it leverages fully managed services and avoids custom logic or replication.

Option A is not optimal because using an EC2 Spot Fleet can introduce the risk of losing the EC2 instances if the Spot price exceeds the bid price, which can affect the availability and performance of the game. Using AWS Global Accelerator can improve the network performance, but it is not necessary if Amazon Route 53 can already route the users to the closest Region. Using Amazon RDS for MySQL can store the game metadata, but it requires setting up read replicas and managing the replication lag across Regions, which can increase the complexity and cost.

Option B is not optimal because using geoproximity routing can direct the users to the Region that is geographically closer, but it does not account for the network latency or performance. Using MySQL databases on EC2 instances can store the game metadata, but it requires managing the EC2 instances, the database software, the backups, the patches, and the replication across Regions, which can increase the operational overhead and cost.

Option D is not optimal because using EC2 Global View is not a valid service. Using a custom DNS server on an EC2 instance can redirect the user to the Region that provides the lowest latency, but it requires developing and maintaining the custom logic, as well as managing the EC2 instance, which can increase the operational overhead and cost. Using Amazon Aurora global database can store the game metadata, but it is more expensive and complex than using Amazon DynamoDB global tables.

Auto Scaling groups

Network Load Balancer

Amazon Route 53

Amazon DynamoDB global tables

https://aws.amazon.com/s3/features/access-points/

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/storage/managing-amazon-s3-access-with-vpc-endpoints-and-s3-access-points/

This solution utilizes Amazon S3 and CloudFront to deploy the UI as a static website, which can be done with minimal development effort. The business logic and API tier can be containerized in a Docker image and stored in Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) and run on Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) with the Fargate launch type, which allows the application to be highly available with minimal operational overhead. The data layer can be deployed on an Amazon Aurora MySQL DB cluster which is a fully managed relational database service.

Amazon Aurora provides high availability and performance for the data layer without the need for managing the underlying infrastructure.

According to the AWS documentation1, AWS App2Container (A2C) is a command line tool for migrating and modernizing Java and .NET web applications into container format. AWS A2C analyzes and builds an inventory of applications running in bare metal, virtual machines, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances, or in the cloud. You can use AWS A2C to generate container images for your applications and deploy them on Amazon ECS or Amazon EKS.

Option A meets the requirements of the scenario because it allows you to migrate your existing Java application to AWS and minimize the administrative overhead to maintain the servers. You can use AWS A2C to analyze your application dependencies, extract application artifacts, and generate a Dockerfile. You can then store your container images in Amazon ECR, which is a fully managed container registry service. You can use AWS Fargate as the launch type for your Amazon ECS cluster, which is a serverless compute engine that eliminates the need to provision and manage servers for your containers. You can grant the ECS task execution role permission to access the ECR image repository, which allows your tasks to pull images from ECR. You can configure Amazon ECS to use an ALB, whichis a load balancer that distributes traffic across multiple targets in multiple Availability Zones using HTTP or HTTPS protocols. You can use the ALB to interact with your application.

The combination of changes that will meet the requirement with the least operational overhead are:

A. Deploy the API to multiple Regions. Configure Amazon Route 53 with custom domain names that route traffic to each Regional API endpoint.Implement a Route 53 multivalue answer routing policy.

B. Create a new KMS multi-Region customer managed key. Create a new KMS customer managed replica key in each in-scope Region.

C. Replicate the existing Secrets Manager secret to other Regions. For each in-scope Region’s replicated secret, select the appropriate KMS key.

These changes will enable the company to have an active-active configuration for its API across multiple Regions, while minimizing the complexity and cost of managing the secrets and keys.

A. This change will allow the company to use Route 53 to distribute traffic across multiple Regional API endpoints, based on the availability and latency of each endpoint.This will improve the performance and availability of the API for global customers12

B. This change will allow the company to use KMS multi-Region keys, which are KMS keys in different Regions that can be used interchangeably.This will simplify the encryption and decryption of secrets across Regions, as the same key material and key ID can be used in any Region34

C. This change will allow the company to use Secrets Manager replication, which replicates the encrypted secret data and metadata across the specified Regions.This will ensure that the secrets are consistent and accessible in any Region, andthat any update made to the primary secret will be propagated to the replica secrets automatically56

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/aws-batch-requests-error/

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/api-gateway-429-limit/

The main problem is that one client is generating a large number of PUT requests, resulting in increased errors. Because the clients are authenticated by API keys and the problematic traffic is concentrated among a small set of clients, API Gateway usage plans and throttling are a direct control mechanism to limit the request rate per client (or per API key). The API is noncritical and clients can tolerate retries, so returning throttling responses is acceptable as long as clients handle them correctly. The goal is to reduce visible customer-facing errors and protect the API from being overwhelmed by a single client.

API Gateway usage plans can set request throttling limits (rate and burst) per API key. When a client exceeds the configured throttle, API Gateway returns HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests). If the client application is designed to treat 429 as a normal, retryable condition rather than a fatal error, the user experience improves because the client can back off and retry instead of surfacing raw failures. This approach prevents one noisy client from degrading service for other users and reduces the overall error rate.

Option B addresses the root cause (excess requests from a particular client) by enforcing throttling at the API Gateway layer and improving client behavior when throttled.

Option A focuses on client-side retries and error handling but does not enforce fairness or prevent a single client from consuming disproportionate API capacity. Without throttling, the same client can continue to overload downstream Lambda and DynamoDB capacity and still cause errors for everyone.

Option C (API caching) does not help for PUT requests because PUT operations are writes and are generally not cacheable in a way that reduces write load. Caching is mainly beneficial for GET responses and read-heavy workloads.

Option D (reserved concurrency) can protect Lambda capacity for critical functions, but it can also cause throttling at the Lambda layer and does not directly address controlling the request rate per API key. It also does not fix the issue at the API front door where the noisy client should be managed.

Therefore, implementing API Gateway throttling via a usage plan and ensuring clients handle 429 responses properly is the best recommendation.

The workload consists of large batch-processing simulation jobs that read 15–20 GB per job from Amazon S3, write results back to S3, are not time sensitive, and can tolerate interruptions. These characteristics are ideal for using EC2 Spot Instances, which provide steep discounts compared to On-Demand pricing in exchange for potential interruptions.

AWS Batch is designed specifically for batch and simulation workloads. It can dynamically provision compute resources, manage job queues, retry failed jobs, and integrate tightly with EC2 Spot Instances. Using an AWS Batch compute environment that is configured to use EC2 Spot Instances with the SPOT_CAPACITY_OPTIMIZED allocation strategy allows AWS Batch to choose the lowest interruption-risk Spot capacity pools automatically while still giving the largest cost savings.

Option B leverages these capabilities. It creates an AWS Batch compute environment using only Spot Instances and uses the SPOT_CAPACITY_OPTIMIZED allocation strategy to select capacity across instance types with lower interruption rates. Since the simulations are not time sensitive and can withstand interruptions, the risk of Spot interruptions is acceptable, and AWS Batch will re-run interrupted jobs as needed. This combination provides the most cost-effective solution while minimizing operational overhead for job scheduling and capacity management.

Option A uses Lambda with Step Functions. Lambda has limits on memory, runtime, and payload size, making it a poor fit for processing 15–20 GB of data per job. In addition, the concurrency and invocation cost for large-scale, long-running simulation workloads would be higher and less cost-effective than EC2 Spot Instances.

Option C mixes On-Demand and Spot Instances. While this can provide reliability for more time-critical workloads, it is less cost-effective than a pure Spot configuration when the workload explicitly can tolerate interruptions and is not time sensitive.

Option D uses Amazon EKS with a mix of On-Demand and Spot Instances. While this can be made to work, it requires managing Kubernetes clusters, node groups, and job scheduling, which introduces more operational complexity than using AWS Batch, and the inclusion of On-Demand capacity reduces cost-effectiveness compared to pure Spot-based batch processing.

Therefore, using AWS Batch with EC2 Spot Instances and the SPOT_CAPACITY_OPTIMIZED allocation strategy (option B) is the most cost-effective solution for this tolerant, batch-processing workload.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/privatelink-interface-endpoints.html#types-of-vpc-endpoints-for-s3

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/s3-bucket-access-direct-connect/

Use a private IP address over Direct Connect (with an interface VPC endpoint)

To access Amazon S3 using a private IP address over Direct Connect, perform the following steps:

3. Create a private virtual interface for your connection.

5. Create an interface VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 in a VPC that is associated with the virtual private gateway. The VGW must connect to a Direct Connect private virtualinterface. This interface VPC endpoint resolves to a private IP address even if you enable a VPC endpoint for S3.

The key requirements are: OpenSearch Service must be deployed within a VPC (VPC-only access), and developers must access OpenSearch from their local machines across multiple locations, including home networks. The most suitable low-overhead approach is to provide remote users with secure client-based connectivity into the VPC so they can reach private endpoints.

AWS Client VPN is a managed client-based VPN service that allows individual users to establish secure TLS VPN connections from their devices into a VPC. By associating a Client VPN endpoint with a subnet in the VPC and configuring authorization rules and routes, developers can access private resources (including VPC-only Amazon OpenSearch Service endpoints) as if they were on the corporate network. Client VPN is designed for distributed workforces and supports users connecting from anywhere without requiring each remote location to have dedicated network appliances.

Option A matches the need for remote developer access from home and multiple offices with the least operational overhead because it is a managed service for user-based VPN access and does not require running and maintaining bastion fleets or building site-to-site networks for each location.

Option B is not correct because AWS Site-to-Site VPN is designed to connect networks (for example, an office network or data center) to AWS, not to provide individual developers remote access from arbitrary home networks. Also, instructing developers to use an OpenVPN client does not align with how Site-to-Site VPN is typically used; Site-to-Site VPN terminates on a customer gateway device, not on individual laptops.

Option C is not correct because Direct Connect is designed for dedicated private connectivity between on-premises networks and AWS. It is not a solution for individual developers connecting from home. Additionally, using a public VIF is for reaching public AWS endpoints, whereas the requirement is to keep access within a VPC. A public VIF does not provide private VPC access to VPC-only service endpoints.

Option D is not the best choice because a bastion host provides SSH access to instances, not direct, secure network-level access to VPC-only managed service endpoints from developer tools. It also increases operational overhead (patching, hardening, monitoring, scaling) and introduces additional security considerations. Developers also typically need browser-based or tool-based access to OpenSearch Dashboards, which is better served by VPN access into the VPC than SSH tunneling through a bastion host as a primary access mechanism.

Therefore, configuring AWS Client VPN to provide developers with secure connectivity into the VPC is the correct solution.

Developing infrastructure services using AWS CloudFormation templates and uploading them as AWS Service Catalog products to portfolios created in a central AWS account will enable thecompany to centrally manage the creation of infrastructure services and control who can use them1. AWS Service Catalog allows you to create and manage catalogs of IT services that are approved for use on AWS2. You can organize products into portfolios, which are collections of products along with configuration information3. You can share portfolios with other accounts in your organization using AWS Organizations4.

Allowing user IAM roles to have ServiceCatalogEndUserAccess permissions only and using an automation script to import the central portfolios to local AWS accounts, copy the TagOption, assign users access, and apply launch constraints will enable the company to provide least privilege access to users when launching AWS infrastructure services. ServiceCatalogEndUserAccess is a managed IAM policy that grants users permission to list and view products and launch product instances. An automation script can help import the shared portfolios from the central account to the local accounts, copy the TagOption from the central account, assign users access to the portfolios, and apply launch constraints that specify which IAM role or user can provision a product.

Using the AWS Service Catalog TagOption Library to maintain a list of tags required by the company and applying the TagOption to AWS Service Catalog products or portfolios will enable the company to enforce tags on any infrastructure that is started by users. TagOptions are key-value pairs that you can use to classify your AWS Service Catalog resources. You can create a TagOption Library that contains all the tags that you want to use across your organization. You can apply TagOptions to products or portfolios, and they will be automatically applied to any provisioned product instances.

Creating a product from an existing CloudFormation template

What is AWS Service Catalog?

Working with portfolios

Sharing a portfolio with AWS Organizations

[Providing least privilege access for users]

[AWS managed policies for job functions]

[Importing shared portfolios]

[Enforcing tag policies]

[Working with TagOptions]

[Creating a TagOption Library]

[Applying TagOptions]

Step B is necessary so that the user in the destination account has the necessary permissions to access the source bucket and list its contents, read its objects. Step D is needed so that the user in the destination account has the necessary permissions to access the destination bucket and list contents, put objects, and set object ACLs Step F is necessary because the aws s3 sync command needs to be run using the IAM user credentials from the destination account, so that the objects will have the appropriate permissions for the user in the destination account once they are copied.

Option A is incorrect because creating a Direct Connect gateway in the central account and creating an association proposal by using the Direct Connect gateway and the account ID for every virtual private gateway does not enable active-passive failover between the regions. A Direct Connect gateway is a globally available resource that enables you to connect your AWS Direct Connect connection over a private virtual interface (VIF) to one or more VPCs in any AWS Region. A virtual private gateway is the VPN concentrator on the Amazon side of a VPN connection. You can associate a Direct Connect gateway with either a transit gateway or a virtual private gateway. However, a Direct Connect gateway does not provide any load balancing or failover capabilities by itself1

Option B is correct because creating a Direct Connect gateway and a transit gateway in the central network account and attaching the transit gateway to the Direct Connect gateway by using a transit VIF meets the requirement of enabling the corporate network to access the resources on AWS seamlessly and also to communicate with all the VPCs. A transit VIF is a type of private VIF that you can use to connect your AWS Direct Connect connection to a transit gateway or a Direct Connect gateway. A transit gateway is a network transit hub that you can use to interconnect your VPCs and on-premises networks. By using a transit VIF, you can route traffic between your on-premises network and multiple VPCs across different AWS accounts and Regions through a single connection23

Option C is incorrect because provisioning an internet gateway, attaching the internet gateway to subnets, and allowing internet traffic through the gateway does not meet the requirement of routing cloud resources to the internet through its on-premises data center. An internet gateway is a horizontally scaled, redundant, and highly available VPC component that allows communication between your VPC and the internet. An internet gateway serves two purposes: to provide a target in your VPC route tables for internet-routable traffic, and to perform network address translation (NAT) for instances that have been assigned public IPv4 addresses. By using an internet gateway, you are routing cloud resources directly to the internet, not through your on-premises data center.

Option D is correct because sharing the transit gateway with other accounts and attaching VPCs to the transit gateway meets the requirement of enabling the corporate network to access the resources on AWS seamlessly and also to communicate with all the VPCs. You can share your transit gateway with other AWS accounts within the same organization by using AWS Resource Access Manager (AWS RAM). This allows you to centrally manage connectivity from multiple accounts without having to create individual peering connections between VPCs or duplicate network appliances in each account. You can attach VPCs from different accounts and Regions to your shared transit gateway and enable routing between them.

Option E is incorrect because provisioning VPC peering as necessary does not meet the requirement of enabling the corporate network to access the resources on AWS seamlessly and also to communicate with all the VPCs. VPC peering is a networking connection between two VPCs that enables you to route traffic between them using private IPv4 addresses or IPv6 addresses. You can create a VPC peering connection between your own VPCs, or with a VPC in another AWS account within asingle Region. However, VPC peering does not allow you to route traffic from your on-premises network to your VPCs or between multiple Regions. You would need to create multiple VPN connections or Direct Connect connections for each VPC peering connection, which increases operational complexity and costs.

Option F is correct because provisioning only private subnets, opening the necessary route on the transit gateway and customer gateway to allow outbound internet traffic from AWS to flow through NAT services that run in the data center meets the requirement of routing cloud resources to the internet through its on-premises data center. A private subnet is a subnet that’s associated with a route table that has no route to an internet gateway. Instances in a private subnet can communicate with other instances in the same VPC but cannot access resources on the internet directly. To enable outbound internet access from instances in private subnets, you can use NAT devices such as NAT gateways or NAT instances that are deployed in public subnets. A public subnet is a subnet that’s associated with a route table that has a route to an internet gateway. Alternatively, you can use your on-premises data center as a NAT device by configuring routes on your transit gateway and customer gateway that direct outbound internet traffic from your private subnets through your VPN connection or Direct Connect connection. This way, you can route cloud resources to the internet through your on-premises data center instead of using an internet gateway.

This option allows the company to use a private repository in Amazon ECR to store and manage its Docker images securely and efficiently1. By creating a permissions policy for the repository that allows only required ECR operations, such as ecr:GetDownloadUrlForLayer, ecr:BatchGetImage, ecr:BatchCheckLayerAvailability, ecr:PutImage, and ecr:InitiateLayerUpload2, the company can restrict access to the repository and prevent unauthorized actions. By including a condition to allow the ECRoperations if the value of the aws:PrincipalOrgID condition key is equal to the ID of the company’s organization, the company can ensure that only accounts that are within its organization can access the images3. By adding a lifecycle rule to the ECR repository that deletes all untagged images over the count of five, the company can reduce storage costs and retain only the most recent untagged images4.

Amazon ECR private repositories

Amazon ECR repository policies

Restricting access to AWS Organizations members

Amazon ECR lifecycle policies

S3 Transfer Acceleration is a feature that enables fast, easy, and secure transfers of files over long distances between your client and an S3 bucket1. It works by leveraging the CloudFront edge network to route your requests to S3 over an optimized network path1. By using a Transfer Acceleration endpoint when generating a presigned URL, you can allow authenticated users to upload objects fasterand more reliably2. Additionally, using the S3 multipart upload API can improve the performance of large object uploads by breaking them into smaller parts and uploading them in parallel3.

S3 Transfer Acceleration

Using Transfer Acceleration with presigned URLs

Uploading objects using multipart upload API

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/using-features.CNAMESwap.html

The issue is API latency for users outside the Region where the API Gateway Regional API endpoint is deployed. The static site is already delivered through CloudFront, but backend API calls bypass CloudFront and go directly to the Regional API endpoint. The best design is to configure API Gateway as another origin in the existing CloudFront distribution and have the application call the same application DNS name. AWS guidance for single-page applications shows CloudFront serving static S3 content and routing dynamic REST/API requests through additional origins, improving global access through CloudFront edge locations. API Gateway edge-optimized behavior also uses CloudFront to route API requests through the nearest edge location. Options A and B do not accelerate the API path. Global Accelerator is not the correct direct integration for API Gateway here.

The best solution is to use AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) to migrate thedata to AWS. AWS DMS is a web service that can migrate data from various sources to various targets, including MySQL databases. AWS DMS can perform full load and change data capture (CDC) migrations, which means that it can copy the existing data and also capture the ongoing changes to keep the source and target databases in sync. This minimizes the downtime during the migration process. AWS DMS also supports encryption at rest and in transit by using AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) and TLS, respectively. This ensures that the data is protected during the migration. AWS DMS can also leverage AWS Direct Connect to transfer the data over a private connection, avoiding the internet. This solution meets all the requirements of the company. References: AWS Database Migration Service Documentation, Migrating Data to Amazon RDS for MySQL or MariaDB, Using SSL to Encrypt a Connection to a DB Instance

The best combination is A, D, and E because it replaces self-managed components with managed AWS services. AWS IoT Core is purpose-built for MQTT-based device communication, and IoT rules can invoke Lambda functions when messages arrive, allowing serverless processing of device data. Amazon DocumentDB is compatible with MongoDB workloads and removes the operational burden of running MongoDB clusters on EC2. For report generation, AWS Step Functions can orchestrate Lambda tasks, and the reports can be written to Amazon S3 and served publicly through CloudFront. The job duration of 120–600 seconds fits within Lambda’s 15-minute maximum invocation timeout. EKS and EC2-based MongoDB would increase operational overhead, while having Lambda poll IoT devices directly is a poor design compared with device publishing through AWS IoT Core. (AWS Documentation)

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Set Up EventBridge Event Bus:

Step 1: Open the Amazon EventBridge console and create a custom event bus. This bus will be used to handle user deletion events.

Step 2: Name the event bus appropriately (e.g.,user-deletion-bus).

Post Events on User Deletion:

Step 1: Modify the central user service to post an event to the custom EventBridge event bus whenever a user is deleted.

Step 2: Ensure the event includes relevant details such as the user ID and any other necessary metadata.

Create EventBridge Rules for Microservices:

Step 1: For each microservice that needs to delete user data, create a new rule in EventBridge that triggers on the user deletion event.

Step 2: Define the event pattern to match the user deletion event. This pattern should include the event details posted by the central user service.

Invoke Microservice Logic:

Step 1: Configure the EventBridge rule to invoke a target, such as an AWS Lambda function, which contains the logic to delete the user data from the microservice ' s data store.

Step 2: Each microservice should have its Lambda function or equivalent logic to handle the deletion of user data upon receiving the event.

Using Amazon EventBridge ensures a scalable, reliable, and decoupled approach to handle the deletion of user data across multiple microservices. This setup allows each microservice to independently process user deletion events without direct dependencies on other services.

References

AWS EventBridge Documentation

DynamoDB Streams and AWS Lambda Triggers

Implementing the Transactional Outbox Pattern with EventBridge Pipes​(AWS Documentation)​​(Amazon Web Services, Inc.)​​(Amazon Web Services, Inc.)​​(AWS Documentation)​​(AWS Cloud Community)​.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/storage_lens.html

Provision an Aurora Replica in a different Region will meet the requirement of the application being able to recover to a separate AWS Region in the event of an application failure, and no data can be lost, with the least amount of operational overhead.

Migration Hub Discovery Agentcollectsdeep host-level data, includingprocesses, connections, dependencies, etc. Combined withStrategy Recommendations, it offers accurate insights for planning cloud migration.

Migration Hub Strategy Recommendations

Configuring read replicas for Amazon RDS MySQL and using the single reader endpoint in the web application can significantly reduce the load on the backend database tier, improving overall application performance. Additionally, implementing an Amazon ElastiCache cluster between the web application and RDS MySQL instances can further reduce database load by caching frequently accessed data, thereby enhancing the application ' s resilience and scalability. These changes address the root cause of the outage by alleviating the database tier ' s high load and preventing similar issues in the future.

AWS Documentation on Amazon RDS Read Replicas and Amazon ElastiCache provides comprehensive guidance on improving application performance and scalability by offloading read traffic from the primary database and caching common queries. These solutions are in line with AWS best practices for building resilient and scalable web applications.

AWS IoT Core’spre-provisioning hookallows custom logic (like serial number validation)beforea device is registered. This ensures that only installed devices connect. Lambda is ideal for such logic.

AWS IoT Just-in-Time Provisioning

Create Amazon S3 gateway endpoint in the VPC and add a VPC endpoint policy. This VPC endpoint policy will have a statement that allows S3 access only via access points owned by the organization.

AWSKMS multi-Region keysallow encryption in one Region and decryption in another. This is specifically built forcross-Region replication scenarios, like Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR).

With a multi-Region key, youcreate a primary keyin one Region andreplica keysin others. These replicas share the same key material and key ID.

Option B would fail because different keys = different IDs = decryption mismatch.

Option C is unrelated — Private CA is for certificates, not symmetric key encryption.

Option D is insecure and violates AWS KMS key management best practices.

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.

The requirement is to reduce application latency for a globally distributed user base, with users primarily in the United States but increasing usage in Europe and the Middle East. The application is read-heavy and uses Amazon DynamoDB as its data store. Reducing latency for global users requires placing both the application compute and the data closer to users in each Region.

Option D uses the correct multi-Region architecture. Deploying the application to multiple AWS Regions places Amazon EKS workloads closer to end users. Converting the DynamoDB table to a global table creates fully managed, multi-Region replicas of the data with low-latency replication. This allows reads to be served locally from the nearest DynamoDB replica, significantly reducing read latency for users outside the primary Region. Because the workload is read-heavy, this design is particularly effective.

Route 53 geolocation routing directs users to the Region closest to them based on their geographic location. Combined with health checks and Evaluate Target Health, this ensures users are routed to the nearest healthy Region, improving both latency and availability.

Option A is incorrect because global secondary indexes do not replicate data across Regions. GSIs operate within a single Region and are used to support alternative query patterns, not global data distribution. Additionally, Route 53 failover routing is designed for disaster recovery, not for performance optimization or global load balancing.

Option B uses DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX), which improves read latency by caching data in memory, but DAX is Region-specific and does not reduce cross-Region network latency for users in Europe and the Middle East accessing a US-based application. It also does not address application-level latency caused by distance to the EKS cluster.

Option C is not valid because DynamoDB does not support read replicas in the same way relational databases do. DynamoDB replication for latency and global access is achieved through global tables, not through read replicas in a single Region. CloudFront can reduce latency for static or cacheable HTTP content, but it does not solve backend application latency or DynamoDB access latency for dynamic, read-heavy requests.

Therefore, deploying the application and DynamoDB as global tables across Regions and using Route 53 geolocation routing is the correct solution to minimize latency for all global users.

When EC2 instances reach third-party API through internet, their privates IP addresses will be masked by NAT Gateway public IP address.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/networking-and-content-delivery/introducing-bring-your-own-ip-byoip-for-amazon-vpc/

Option A is correct because AWS IoT Core is a managed MQTT broker service built to handle large-scale device connectivity and message ingestion without the company managing Mosquitto brokers on EC2. AWS IoT rules can process MQTT topic messages and route them to AWS services, including AWS Step Functions. A Step Functions Express workflow is suitable for high-volume, event-driven processing because it is designed for short-duration, high-throughput workflows. Option B is not the best fit because EventBridge Pipes is not the direct AWS IoT rules action pattern required here. Option C requires changing devices to send data to Firehose instead of MQTT. Option D also requires device-side protocol changes and does not provide the managed MQTT connectivity layer that solves the broker scalability problem.

Create a new customer-managed prefix list in the security team’s AWS account. Populate the customer-managed prefix list with all internal CIDR ranges. Share the customer-managed prefix list with the organization by using AWS Resource Access Manager. Notify the owner of each AWS account to allow the new customer-managed prefix list ID in their security groups. This solution meets the requirements with the least amount of operational overhead as it requires the security team to create and maintain a single customer-managed prefix list, and share it with the organization using AWS Resource Access Manager. The owners of each AWS account are then responsible for allowing the prefix list in their security groups, whicheliminates the need for the security team to manually notify each account owner when changes are made. This solution also eliminates the need for a separate AWS Lambda function in each account, reducing the overall complexity of the solution.

This solution uses a combination of AWS Resource Access Manager (RAM) and automated backups to migrate the Lambda functions and the Aurora database to theTarget account while minimizing downtime. In this solution, the Lambda function deployment package is downloaded from the Source account and used to create new Lambda functions in the Target account. The Aurora DB cluster is shared with the Target account using AWS RAM and the Target account is granted permission to clone the Aurora DB cluster, allowing for a new copy of the Aurora database to be created in the Target account. This approach allows for the data to be migrated to the Target account while minimizing downtime, as the Target account can use the cloned Aurora database while the original Aurora database continues to be used in the Source account.

This solution will meet the requirements of implementing a highly available architecture for the application servers in AWS. Creating a pool of ENIs will allow the application servers to have consistent MAC addresses, which are needed for the license files. Requesting license files from the vendor for the pool and storing them in Amazon S3 will ensure that the license files are available and secure. Creating a bootstrap automation script to download a license file and attach the corresponding ENI to an EC2 instance will automate the process of launching new application servers with valid licenses. Editing the bootstrap automation script to read the database server IP address from the AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store and inject the value into the local configuration files will enable the application servers to access the database without hard-coding the IP address in the configuration files. This will also allow changing the database server IP address without modifying the configuration files on each application server.

(Store the uploaded images in an S3 bucket and use S3 event notification with SQS queue) is the most suitable design. Amazon S3 provides highly scalable and durable storage for theuploaded images. Configuring S3 event notifications to send messages to an SQS queue allows for decoupling the processing of images from the upload process. A fleet of EC2 instances can pull messages from the SQS queue to process the images and store them in another S3 bucket. Scaling out the EC2 instances based on SQS queue depth using CloudWatch metrics ensures efficient utilization of resources. Enabling Amazon CloudFront with the origin set to the S3 bucket containing the processed images improves the global availability and performance of image delivery.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/apigateway/latest/developerguide/api-gateway-request-throttling.html#apig-request-throttling-account-level-limits

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

The company should create an Amazon Route 53 Resolver DNS Firewall domain list that contains the allowed domains. The company should configure a DNS Firewall rule group with a rule that has a high numeric value that blocks all requests. The company should configure a rule that has a low numeric value that allows requests for domains in the allowed list. The company should associate the rule group with the VPC. This solution will meet the requirements because Amazon Route 53 Resolver DNS Firewall is a feature that enables you to filter and regulate outbound DNS traffic for your VPC. You can create reusable collections of filtering rules in DNS Firewall rule groups and associate them with your VPCs. You can specify lists of domain names to allow or block, and you can customize theresponses for the DNS queries that you block1. By creating a domain list with the allowed domains and a rule group with rules to allow or block requests based on the domain list, the company can enforce its security policy and control access to sites.

The other options are not correct because:

Configuring a Route 53 outbound endpoint and associating it with the VPC would not help with filtering outbound DNS traffic. A Route 53 outbound endpoint is a resource that enables you to forward DNS queries from your VPC to your networkover AWS Direct Connect or VPN connections2.It does not provide any filtering capabilities.

Creating a Route 53 traffic flow policy to match the allowed domains would not help with filtering outbound DNS traffic. A Route 53 traffic flow policy is a resource that enables you to route traffic based on multiple criteria, such as endpoint health, geographic location, and latency3.It does not provide any filtering capabilities.

Creating a Gateway Load Balancer (GWLB) would not help with filtering outbound DNS traffic. A GWLB is a service that enables you to deploy, scale, and manage third-party virtual appliances such as firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and deep packet inspection systems in the cloud4.It does not provide any filtering capabilities.

Creating a quota request template in the us-east-1 Region of the management account ensures it applies to all newly provisioned accounts in the organization.

By specifying the required ml.p2.xlarge training job and endpoint usage quotas in ap-southeast-2, the accounts will automatically receive these higher quotas upon creation, supporting the student lab environments without additional manual quota requests.

This process integrates seamlessly with AWS Organizations for automated and standardized account provisioning.

https://aws.amazon.com/kinesis/data-firehose/faqs/

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/private-hosted-zone-different-account/

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/database/cost-effective-disaster-recovery-for-amazon-aurora-databases-using-aws-backup/

For migration planning, AWS provides specific tooling to discover on-premises servers, collect detailed performance and configuration data, and analyze application dependencies. The primary service for this purpose is AWS Application Discovery Service, which integrates with AWS Migration Hub.

The AWS Application Discovery Agent is installed on on-premises physical servers and VMs. It collects detailed information such as CPU, memory, and disk utilization; processes and services running on the system; system configuration details; and network connections between systems. This allows the company to understand how servers communicate, what applications are running, and what dependencies exist between components.

This data is sent to AWS Application Discovery Service and surfaced through AWS Migration Hub, where the company can view discovered servers, group them logically into applications, and analyze migration readiness. Migration Hub can use this collected data to provide recommendations for EC2 instance sizing that are based on actual on-premises utilization metrics, helping choose appropriate EC2 instance types and sizes.

Option C directly describes installing the AWS Application Discovery Agent, using AWS Migration Hub to discover and group servers into applications, and using Migration Hub to generate EC2 instance recommendations. This aligns with AWS’s migration assessment tooling and meets all the stated goals: performance measurement, system configuration listing, network connection understanding, dependency analysis, and instance sizing recommendations.

Option A uses AWS Systems Manager Agent and Application Manager. While Systems Manager can manage servers and collect some information, it is not the primary tool for detailed migration discovery, networking dependency mapping, and migration-focused analysis. It also suggests using AWS Pricing Calculator for instance recommendations, which requires manual input and does not automatically derive recommendations from observed utilization and dependencies.

Option B suggests using the Amazon Inspector agent to gather performance and usage information. Amazon Inspector is designed for vulnerability and security assessments, not for detailed migration discovery or dependency mapping. Additionally, AWS Compute Optimizer currently bases its recommendations on usage metrics from AWS resources, not on-premises servers.

Option D uses the CloudWatch agent to collect metrics and then Migration Hub and Compute Optimizer. The CloudWatch agent is not the standard agent for migration discovery and dependency analysis of on-premises workloads. Also, Compute Optimizer focuses on optimization of existing AWS resources rather than creating recommendations based on on-premises utilization.

Therefore, installing the AWS Application Discovery Agent and using AWS Migration Hub (option C) is the correct solution to satisfy all the requirements for migration assessment and EC2 sizing recommendations.

(https://docs.aws.amazon.com/controltower/latest/userguide/strongly-recommended-guardrails.html)

Using Mountpoint for Amazon S3 to directly mount the S3 bucket to the EC2 instances ensures that the latest version of the pricing file is always available without repeatedly downloading it to each instance.

This eliminates stale data issues and minimizes data transfer costs since the file does not need to be copied each time an instance launches.

This solution is cost-effective and aligns with AWS best practices for accessing frequently updated shared files directly from S3.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/database/amazon-dynamodb-auto-scaling-performance-and-cost-optimization-at-any-scale/ " As you can see, there are compelling reasons to use DynamoDB auto scaling with actively changing traffic. Auto scaling responds quickly and simplifies capacity management, which lowers costs by scaling your table’s provisioned capacity and reducing operational overhead. "

A is correct because AWS recommends using oneconnection alias per Region, associated witheach directory. Then, configure a Route 53 failover policy so that if the primary Region becomes unhealthy, users are directed to the failover Region automatically. “Evaluate Target Health” ensures automatic detection and failover.

C is correct because the existing workload already uses a compute optimized EC2 instance for HPC-style processing, so the closest performance-optimized rehost is an Auto Scaling group of compute optimized On-Demand instances behind an Application Load Balancer. On-Demand instances avoid Spot interruption risk, which is important when the requirement emphasizes performance rather than cost reduction. The application currently uses Redis for application state and a frequently updated leaderboard, so Amazon ElastiCache for Redis OSS is the managed AWS replacement. AWS documentation identifies Redis OSS sorted sets as a direct pattern for gaming leaderboards and describes ElastiCache as a Redis-compatible in-memory service with low-latency performance. OpenSearch is for search and analytics, not high-speed leaderboard state. DynamoDB can support ranking patterns but is not the direct Redis-compatible migration target.

It can prevent the issue from happening again by monitoring the file system with the FreeStorageCapacity metric in Amazon CloudWatch and using Amazon EventBridge to invoke an AWS Lambda function to increase the capacity as required. This ensures that the file system always has enough free space to store user profiles and avoids reaching maximum capacity.

The correct approach involves activating the BusinessUnit cost allocation tag in the management account to ensure costs are tagged consistently across the organization.

The AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR), delivered to a single Amazon S3 bucket in the management account, consolidates cost and usage data across all member accounts.

Amazon Athena can efficiently query the CUR data directly from S3, while Amazon QuickSight can be used to create interactive dashboards and reports that visualize the cost allocation by business unit.

This solution minimizes complexity, centralizes reporting, and leverages AWS native services for the best cost optimization and insights.

By creating an AMI that has Grafana pre-installed and storing the existing dashboards in Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) it allows for faster and more efficient scaling, and by creating an Auto Scaling group that uses the new AMI and setting the Auto Scaling group ' s minimum, desired, and maximum number of instances to one and creating an Application Load Balancer that serves at least two Availability Zones, it ensures high availability and minimized downtime.

Resource-based policies are policies that you attach to a resource, such as an IAM role, to specify who can access the resource and what actions they can perform on it1. Identity-based policies are policies that you attach to an IAM user, group, or role to specify what actions they can perform on which resources2. Trust policies are special types of resource-based policies that define which principals (such as IAM users or roles) can assume a role3.

To allow an IAM user in Account A to assume a role in Account B, the solutions architect needs to do the following:

Configure the resource-based policy on the target role in Account B to allow the action sts:AssumeRole for the IAM user in Account A. This policy grants permission to the IAM user to assume the role4.

Configure the identity-based policy on the user in Account A to allow the action sts:AssumeRole for the target role in Account B. This policy grants permission to the user to perform the action of assuming the role5.

Configure the trust policy on the target role in Account B to allow the principal of the IAM user in Account A. This policy defines who can assume the role.

Resource-based policies

Identity-based policies

Trust policies

Granting a user permissions to switch roles

Switching roles

[Modifying a role trust policy]

The correct answer is B. The requirement is resource-side protection for all current and future private Amazon ECR repositories across the organization. AWS Organizations resource control policies are designed to centrally restrict permissions on resources in member accounts and are appropriate when external principals must be prevented from accessing organization-owned resources. AWS documentation lists Amazon Elastic Container Registry as a supported service for RCPs. A condition such as aws:PrincipalOrgID enforces that only principals from the same AWS Organization can access the resources. SCPs restrict principals in accounts, not resource exposure to external principals. Modifying IAM policies in hundreds of accounts is operationally poor and does not protect future repository policies consistently. AWS RAM is not the right control plane for private ECR repository access. (AWS Documentation)

===============

Using a DHCP options set in AWS allows EC2 instances to automatically receive network configuration information, including the IP address of the on-premises NTP server.

This ensures that all EC2 instances in the VPC consistently use the on-premises atomic clock as their authoritative time source, maintaining the same time synchronization as the existing environment.

By allowing NTP traffic over the Direct Connect connection and ensuring proper security group and network ACL configurations, this approach eliminates the need to manually configure each EC2 instance’s NTP settings, significantly reducing administrative overhead and ensuring consistent, accurate time across the environment.

This aligns with AWS best practices for extending on-premises time synchronization to EC2 instances in a hybrid environment.

The requirement is to continuously scan all AWS resources in this solution for security vulnerabilities with the least operational overhead. The environment includes Amazon EKS worker nodes in a managed node group and an Amazon ECR repository that stores container images used by the EKS cluster.

Amazon Inspector is a managed vulnerability scanning service that integrates directly with multiple AWS resource types. It can automatically discover Amazon EC2 instances (including EKS managed node group instances) and perform continuous vulnerability assessments against them, using software inventory and known CVE databases. Inspector also integrates with Amazon ECR to scan container images for vulnerabilities when images are pushed to the repository and periodically thereafter, providing continuous assessment of image security posture without requiring separate scanners or infrastructure.

By activating Amazon Inspector for the account and region, the service will automatically start tracking supported resources, including EKS-managed EC2 instances and ECR repositories, and will begin scanning them for known vulnerabilities. Findings are provided through the Inspector console and can be integrated with other services such as AWS Security Hub or Amazon EventBridge for further aggregation and automation, but no separate infrastructure deployment or maintenance is required.

Option B, therefore, provides end-to-end vulnerability scanning for both the EKS nodes and the ECR images with minimal operational overhead, because it leverages a fully managed AWS service that automatically discovers and scans supported resources.

Option A is not correct because AWS Security Hub does not itself perform vulnerability scanning. Security Hub aggregates and normalizes security findings from various AWS services, including Amazon Inspector, GuardDuty, and others. It is a security posture management and aggregation service, not a vulnerability scanner.

Option C introduces additional operational overhead by requiring the company to provision, configure, secure, and maintain a separate EC2 instance running a third-party vulnerability scanning tool. While ECR basic scan-on-push can detect some image vulnerabilities, the EC2-based scanner must be managed, updated, and scaled by the customer, which violates the requirement for the least operational overhead when a fully managed alternative exists.

Option D is incorrect because the Amazon CloudWatch agent is used for metrics and log collection from EC2 instances and other environments; it does not perform vulnerability scanning or CVE analysis. Configuring CloudWatch for monitoring and logging does not meet the requirement to continuously scan for security vulnerabilities. ECR basic scans also provide only image-level scanning and do not cover the EKS nodes themselves.

Therefore, enabling Amazon Inspector to scan both the EKS nodes and the ECR repository, as described in option B, is the solution that meets the continuous vulnerability scanning requirement with the least operational overhead.

The best solution is to create an AWS WAF web ACL and configure a rule to block any requests that do not originate from the specified country. This will ensure that only users from the allowed country can access the application. AWS WAF also provides logging capabilities that can capture the access requests that have been blocked. This solution requires the least possible maintenance as it does not involve updating IP ranges or security group rules. References: [AWS WAF Developer Guide], [AWS Shield Developer Guide]

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/11/announcing-amazon-mq-rabbitmq/

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

A. Using AWS CloudFormation templates allows for the automation of infrastructure deployment. By parameterizing the templates, resources can be provisioned consistently across multiple Regions, reducing administrative overhead and ensuring infrastructure as code practices.

D. Amazon Route 53 latency-based routing directs user requests to the AWS Region that provides the lowest latency, improving access times for users globally and enhancing the user experience.

E. Enabling DynamoDB Streams and adding a second Region to create a global table ensures that data is replicated across Regions, providing high availability and disaster recovery capabilities.

This combination of steps ensures that the application stack is replicated efficiently across Regions, providing disaster recovery, improved performance, and scalability, all while minimizing manual administrative tasks.

https://joe.blog.freemansoft.com/2020/04/protect-data-in-cloud-with-s3-access.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/lambda-edge-how-it-works-tutorial.html

because Amazon CloudFront considers the case of parameter names and values when caching based on query string parameters , thus inconsistent query strings may cause CloudFront to forward mixed-cased/misordered requests to the origin. Triggering a Lambda@Edge function based on a viewer request event to sort parameters by name and force them to be lowercase is the best choice. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/QueryStringParameters.html#query-string-parameters-optimizing-cachinghttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/lambda-cloudfront-trigger-events.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/lambda-examples.html#lambda-examples-normalize-query-string-parameters

The company wants logging that helps troubleshoot email delivery issues and also wants to search by recipient, subject, and time sent. Amazon SES provides event publishing for email sending and delivery events through configuration sets. With a configuration set, SES can publish sending events such as send, delivery, bounce, complaint, reject, and rendering failure to destinations such as Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon SNS, or Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose. For building a searchable log store, delivering these events into Amazon S3 through Kinesis Data Firehose is an effective approach because S3 provides durable storage and integrates well with query services.

Option A creates an SES configuration set with a Kinesis Data Firehose destination that delivers logs to an S3 bucket. This captures detailed SES event data that is directly useful for troubleshooting delivery issues and retaining historical records for analysis.

Once logs are stored in Amazon S3, Amazon Athena can query the data using SQL. Athena is designed to query data in S3 and is well suited for ad hoc searches. This meets the requirement to search based on recipient, subject, and time sent, assuming the event schema includes these fields (or they are included in the published event payload). Therefore, option C completes the solution by enabling searches over the stored log dataset.

Option B (CloudTrail) records API activity, such as calls made to SES APIs, but it is not designed to capture per-message delivery outcomes (deliveries, bounces, complaints) in a way that supports troubleshooting delivery behavior and detailed email event searching. CloudTrail is useful for auditing who called SES APIs, not for tracking message-level delivery events and outcomes.

Option D (CloudWatch log group) is another valid SES event publishing destination, but if the requirement is to perform flexible searches by multiple dimensions over a potentially large historical dataset, storing the logs in S3 and querying with Athena is a more direct and scalable pattern. Also, the provided option E is incorrect because Athena queries data in S3, not in CloudWatch Logs. CloudWatch Logs has its own query mechanism, but Athena is not used to query CloudWatch Logs directly in the way described.

Option E is incorrect because Amazon Athena does not query CloudWatch Logs as a log store. The typical searchable pattern for Athena is S3-backed datasets.

Therefore, the best combination to satisfy logging and searchable analysis requirements is to publish SES events to S3 via Kinesis Data Firehose (option A) and query those logs with Athena (option C).

This option uses Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) with the Fargate launch type to deploy the application containers. Amazon ECS is a fully managed container orchestration service that allows running Docker containers on AWS at scale. Fargate is a serverless compute engine for containers that eliminates the need to provision or manage servers or clusters. With Fargate, the company only pays for the resources required to run its containers, which reduces costs and operational overhead. This option also uses Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) for shared storage. Amazon EFS is a fully managed file system that provides scalable, elastic, concurrent, and secure file storage for use with AWS cloud services. Amazon EFS supports NFS version 4 protocol, which is compatible with the application’s requirements. To use Amazon EFS with Fargate containers, the company needs to reference the EFS file system ID, container mount point, and EFS authorization IAM role in the ECS task definition.

https://aws.amazon.com/es/blogs/mt/implement-aws-resource-tagging-strategy-using-aws-tag-policies-and-service-control-policies-scps/

The data scientists’ EC2 instances in a separate account must access S3 data in a controlled way that satisfies the policy: only authorized networks may access the IoT data. “Authorized networks” in this context means traffic must originate from approved VPCs and must not traverse the public internet.

First, traffic from the EC2 instances to S3 must stay on the AWS network without using public endpoints. A gateway VPC endpoint for S3 in the data scientists’ VPC (option A) allows EC2 instances in that VPC to reach S3 over private connectivity. When using a gateway VPC endpoint, the route tables of the subnets associated with the endpoint automatically route S3 traffic through the endpoint. This ensures that access to S3 is from an authorized network (the VPC) instead of from the public internet.

Second, access must be constrained such that only calls made through the intended S3 access mechanism are allowed. The data lake bucket already has an S3 access point. S3 access points can be restricted by policy and can be referenced in bucket policies through the s3:DataAccessPointArn condition key. By using an S3 bucket policy that allows s3:GetObject only when s3:DataAccessPointArn matches the expected access point ARN (option E), the company can enforce that all valid access uses the approved access point configuration. Combined with the access point’s own network configuration and the VPC endpoint, access is limited to authorized networks.

Option B, blocking public access on the access point, is a good general security practice but does not by itself guarantee that access is restricted to authorized VPC networks. The main enforcement must be through VPC endpoints and bucket/access point policies.

Option C denies s3:GetObject when s3:DataAccessPointArn is a valid access point ARN, which is the opposite of what is required. This would prevent intended access via the access point rather than allow it.

Option D is not correct because gateway VPC endpoints for S3 are configured via endpoint associations with route tables, not by directly routing to an access point in the route table. Traffic to S3 is routed to the VPC endpoint, and the endpoint plus S3 policies determine access.

Therefore, creating a gateway VPC endpoint for S3 in the data scientists’ VPC (option A) and using a bucket policy condition on s3:DataAccessPointArn to allow access only through the authorized access point (option E) together meet the requirement of secure, network-restricted access from authorized networks.

Create an IAM role in the sales account and grant access to the S3 bucket. From the marketing account, assume the IAM role in the sales account to access the S3 bucket. Update the QuickSight role, to create a trust relationship with the new IAM role in the sales account.

This approach is the most secure way to grant cross-account access to the data in the S3 bucket while minimizing operational overhead. By creating an IAM role in the sales account, the marketing team can assume the role in their own account, and have access to the S3 bucket. And updating the QuickSight role, to create a trust relationship with the new IAM role in the sales account will grant the marketing team to access the data in the S3 bucket and use it for data visualization using QuickSight.

AWS Resource Access Manager (AWS RAM) also allows sharing of resources between accounts, but it would require additional management and configuration to set up the sharing, which would increase operational overhead.

Using S3 replication would also replicate the data to the marketing account, but it would not provide the marketing team access to the original data, and also it would increase operational overhead with managing the replication process.

IAM roles and policies, KMS grants and trust relationships are a powerful combination for managing cross-account access in a secure and efficient manner.

This option will complete the migration to AWS in the least amount of time because it uses two AWS services that are designed to simplify and accelerate data transfers and migrations. AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN) is a highly automated lift-and-shift solution that helps you migrate applications from any source infrastructure that runs supported operating systems to AWS1. It replicates your source servers into your AWS account and automatically converts and launches them on AWS so you can quickly benefit from the cloud1. You can use AWS MGN to migrate your on-premises VMware VMs to AWS by configuring a connection to your VMware cluster and creating a replication job for the VMs2. This process will minimize the time-intensive, error-prone manual processes of exporting and importing VM images.

AWS DataSync is an online data movement and discovery service that simplifies and accelerates data migrations to AWS and helps you move data quicklyand securelybetween on-premises storage, edge locations, other cloud providers, and AWS Storage3. It can transfer data between Network File System (NFS) shares, Server Message Block (SMB) shares,Hadoop Distributed File Systems (HDFS), self-managed object storage, AWS Snowcone, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) buckets, Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) file systems, Amazon FSx for Windows File Server file systems, Amazon FSx for Lustre file systems, Amazon FSx for OpenZFS file systems, and Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP file systems3. You can use AWS DataSync to copy your on-premises NFS server data to an Amazon EFS file system over the Direct Connect connection4. This process will leverage the high bandwidth and low latency of Direct Connect and the encryption and data integrity validation of DataSync.

Ais the correct best-practice approach:

Activate cost allocation tags inmanagement/payer account.

Enable AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) to dump usage to S3.

Query CUR withAmazon Athena, and visualize withAmazon QuickSight.

Other options either duplicate CURs (C, D) or misuse tools (B: CloudWatch is not a cost analysis tool).

Using Amazon API Gateway with an SQS queue ensures all data sent to the API is durably stored for processing, even during traffic surges.

API Gateway service integration with SQS provides a managed, serverless ingestion layer that absorbs unpredictable traffic bursts without data loss.

The AWS Lambda function processes messages from SQS, providing scalable, on-demand compute to handle environmental data efficiently.

This solution aligns with AWS best practices for building resilient, serverless, event-driven architectures that can handle high-volume, bursty workloads.

The correct answer is A because the control must prevent creation of new EC2 instances and EBS volumes unless the required Project tag is supplied in the launch request. The relevant API action is ec2:RunInstances, not ec2:StartInstances. AWS supports enforcing tags at resource creation by using request tag condition keys such as aws:RequestTag/Project. A deny statement with the Null condition set to true blocks the request when the tag is missing. aws:CostAllocationTag is not the correct condition key for authorization at launch time; cost allocation tags are for billing categorization after tags exist. AWS tagging guidance specifically shows deny policies for ec2:RunInstances when a required cost allocation-style tag is not present in the request. (AWS Documentation)

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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.

Set Up AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery:

Navigate to the AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) console.

Configure the Elastic Disaster Recovery service to replicate your on-premises VMware vSphere VMs to Amazon EC2 instances. This involves installing the AWS Replication Agent on your VMs.

Configure Replication Settings:

Define the replication settings, including the Amazon EC2 instance type and the Amazon EBS volume configuration. Ensure that the replication frequency meets your Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 5 minutes.

Monitor Data Replication:

Monitor the initial data replication process in the Elastic Disaster Recovery console. Once the initial sync is complete, the status should show as " Healthy " indicating that the data replication is up-to-date and within the RPO requirements.

Disaster Recovery (Failover):

In the event of a disaster, initiate a failover from the Elastic Disaster Recovery console. This will launch the replicated Amazon EC2 instances using the Amazon EBS volumes with the latest data.

Failback Process:

Once the on-premises environment is restored, perform a failback operation to synchronize the data from AWS back to your on-premises VMware environment. Use the failback client provided by AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery to ensure data consistency and minimal downtime during the failback process.

Using AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery provides a low-overhead, automated solution for disaster recovery that ensures minimal data loss and meets the RPO requirement of 5 minutes​(Amazon Web Services, Inc.)​​(AWS Documentation)​.

C is correct because the root cause is synchronous chaining of Lambda functions that causes the initial function to wait and time out. AWS Step Functions is designed to orchestrate multiple steps (including Lambda invocations) with managed state, retries, and timeouts at the workflow level. By moving the chaining logic into a Step Functions state machine and removing direct function-to-function invocations, the initial Lambda no longer needs to remain running while waiting for downstream functions. Step Functions can coordinate the sequence (or parallel branches), handle transient failures with retries/backoff, and maintain execution state without requiring a long-lived “waiting” Lambda invocation. This resolves timeouts while preserving the operational and cost advantages of a serverless Lambda-based architecture and typically requires minimal code change compared to rewriting or migrating platforms.

Why the other options are incorrect:

A: Migrating to containers/EKS is a major architectural change and increases operational overhead, violating “minimum application changes” and the desire to keep Lambda benefits.

B: Rewriting in Java is extensive and unnecessary. Adding SQS between functions changes invocation style and error handling and still requires significant redesign (and does not inherently solve orchestration/branching as cleanly as Step Functions).

D: Grouping functions into containers and running on ECS Spot changes the compute model and introduces more operational overhead and larger application changes than adopting Step Functions.

https://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/global-database/

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/operating-lambda-performance-optimization-part-1/

Lambda has a maximum timeout of 900 seconds, or 15 minutes. Since the function is already configured with the maximum timeout and still fails, the workload should move to a containerized compute model that can run longer. The least operational overhead option is Amazon ECS with AWS Fargate. The application code should be packaged as a Docker container image and stored in Amazon ECR, which ECS task definitions can reference. EventBridge can invoke ECS tasks directly and supports ECS parameters, including the Fargate launch type. This avoids keeping Lambda in the execution path and removes the need to manage EC2 container instances. Storing container images in S3 is not the standard ECS deployment model, and Step Functions does not directly “use” a Docker image as described. (AWS Documentation)

===============

Create an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic with a subscription of type " Email " that targets the team ' s mailing list. This will create a topic for sending notifications and add a subscription for the team ' s email list to that topic. C. Add a Catch field to all Task, Map, and Parallel states that have a statement of " ErrorEquals " : [ " States.ALL " ] and " Next " : " Email " . This will ensure that any errors that occur in any of the steps in the workflow will trigger the " Email " task, which will forward the inputarguments to the SNS topic created in step A. B. Create a task named " Email " that forwards the input arguments to the SNS topic. This will allow the company to send email notifications to the team ' s mailing list in case of any errors occurred in any step in the workflow.

The requirement is to estimate total cost of ownership before migration. This includes comparing current on-premises costs with projected AWS costs for compute, storage, databases, and related services, and producing a consolidated business-focused TCO view.

AWS Migration Evaluator is the AWS service specifically designed to help customers build data-driven business cases for migrating workloads to AWS. Migration Evaluator collects inventory and utilization data from on-premises environments by using a collector. It then allows architects to model different migration scenarios, map on-premises resources to AWS services such as Amazon EKS managed node groups and Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL, and generate reports that estimate costs, savings, and TCO impacts. The Quick Insights report provides a summarized, executive-level view of the estimated AWS costs, on-premises costs, and projected savings, which directly satisfies the requirement.

Option B is not sufficient because AWS DMS assessment reports focus on database migration feasibility and compatibility, not full workload TCO. The AWS Pricing Calculator can estimate AWS service costs, but it does not automatically incorporate on-premises cost data or provide a consolidated TCO comparison without significant manual effort.

Option C is incorrect because AWS Application Migration Service focuses on rehosting servers and testing migrations. It does not produce comprehensive TCO reports comparing on-premises and AWS environments for container platforms like EKS and managed databases.

Option D is incorrect because the AWS Cloud Economics Center and Cloud Value Framework provide conceptual guidance and methodology, not a workload-specific TCO report. AWS Cost and Usage Reports are used to analyze existing AWS usage, not to estimate costs for workloads that have not yet been migrated.

Therefore, using Migration Evaluator to collect on-premises data, model the target EKS and RDS architecture, and export a Quick Insights TCO report is the correct solution.

The AWS Application Discovery Service can help plan migration projects by collecting data about on-premises servers, such as configuration, performance, and network connections. The data collection agent is a lightweight software that can be installed on each server to gather this information. This option is more cost-effective than agentless discovery, which requires deploying a virtual appliance in the VMware environment, or using CloudWatch agent, which incurs additional charges for CloudWatch Logs. Scanning the servers over a VPN is not a valid option for AWS Application Discovery Service. References: What is AWS Application Discovery Service?, Data collection methods

This option allows the solutions architect to use an identity policy that grants the user readand write access to their own personal folder on the S3 bucket1. By adding a condition that specifies that the S3 paths must be prefixed with ${aws:username}, the solutions architect can ensure that each scientist can only access their own folder2. By applying the policy on the scientists’ IAM user group, the solutions architect can simplify the management of permissions for all the scientists3. By configuring a trail with AWS CloudTrail to capture all object-level events in the S3 bucket, the solutions architect can record and store information about every action performed on the S3 objects4. By storing the trail output in another S3 bucket, thesolutions architect can secure and archive the log files5. By using Amazon Athena to query the logs and generate reports, the solutions architect can use a serverless interactive query service that can analyze data in S3 using standard SQL.

Identity-based policies

Policy variables

IAM groups

Object-level logging

Creating a trail that applies to all regions

[What is Amazon Athena?]

The company should attach a policy to the S3-access group to deny all S3 actions unless MFA is present. The company should request temporary credentials from AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS). The company should attach the temporary credentials in a profile that Amazon S3 will reference when the user performs actions in Amazon S3. This solution will meet the requirements because AWS STS is a service that enables you to request temporary, limited-privilege credentials for IAM users or for users that you authenticate (federated users). You can use MFA with AWS STS to provide an extra layer of security when requesting temporary credentials1. You can use the sts get-session-token AWS CLI command to request temporary credentials that include an MFA token2. You can then use these credentials with the AWS CLI to access Amazon S3 resources. To do this, you need to attach a policy to the IAM group that denies all S3 actions unless MFA is present3.You also need to create a profile in the AWS CLI configuration file that references the temporary credentials.

The other options are not correct because:

Attaching a policy to the S3 bucket to prompt the IAM user for an MFA code when the IAM user performs actions on the S3 bucket would not work because policies attached to S3 buckets cannot enforce MFA authentication. Policies attached to S3 buckets are resource-based policies that define what actions can be performed on the bucket and by whom. They do not have any logic to prompt for an MFA code or verify it.

Updating the trust policy for the S3-access group to require principals to use MFA when principals assume the group would not work because trust policies are used for roles, not groups. Trust policies are policies that define which principals can assume a role. They do not apply to groups, which are collections of IAM users that share permissions.

Creating an Amazon Route 53 Resolver DNS Firewall domain list that contains the allowed domains and configuring a DNS Firewall rule group with rules to allow or block requests based on the domain list would not help with enforcing MFA authentication for Amazon S3 actions. Amazon Route 53 Resolver DNS Firewall is a feature that enables you to filter and regulate outbound DNS traffic for your VPC. You can create reusable collections of filtering rules in DNS Firewall rule groups and associate them with your VPCs. You can specify lists of domain names to allow or block, and you can customize the responses for the DNS queries that you block. This feature is useful for controlling access to sites and blocking DNS-level threats, but not for requiring MFA authentication.

The requirements emphasize minimum downtime, rapid migration, managed database services, high availability, and support for stored procedures. For Oracle-to-AWS migrations with minimal downtime, AWS DMS can replicate ongoing changes from the source database to the target, which reduces cutover downtime. However, a critical constraint is that the database contains stored procedures. If the company moves to a different engine, it must convert schema objects and procedural code.

Option D is the only option that combines an online replication approach (AWS DMS) with a managed, highly available target database (Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL) and explicitly includes schema and stored procedure conversion with AWS SCT. This aligns with a fast migration approach: SCT prepares the converted schema and stored procedures, while DMS performs ongoing replication of data changes until cutover, minimizing downtime. Aurora PostgreSQL is a managed service and supports high availability through multi-AZ architecture and managed failover capabilities within a Region.

Option A is incorrect because Amazon RDS does not use an S3 bucket “as database storage” in the way described. RDS storage is managed by the RDS service, and S3 replication is not the mechanism used to provide database high availability. High availability for RDS is typically achieved through Multi-AZ configurations and/or cluster-based architectures depending on engine. The described storage approach is not a valid managed RDS architecture.

Option B does not meet the managed database requirement because it restores Oracle onto EC2 instances, which is self-managed. It also does not meet minimum downtime because it requires shutting down the on-premises database to avoid new transactions before restoring the backup. This is a longer outage model than an online migration with continuous replication.

Option C is not feasible and would require major redesign. DynamoDB is not a relational database replacement for Oracle stored procedures. DAX is a DynamoDB cache and cannot run stored procedures. The option also incorrectly suggests running stored procedures “in DAX.” This does not meet the “migrate as quickly as possible with minimum downtime” requirement due to extensive refactoring and redesign.

Therefore, migrating to Aurora PostgreSQL using AWS SCT for schema and stored procedure conversion, and AWS DMS for ongoing replication to minimize downtime, is the best fit.

RDS Proxyoptimizes and pools DB connections. By combining this withPrivateLink + NLB, other accounts can securely access the proxy endpoint without going over the internet or setting up peering for every new account.

RDS Proxy Docs

Creating an internal ALB and configuring it as a PrivateLink endpoint service enables private connectivity between internal applications and the metadata API, ensuring that traffic does not traverse the public internet.

Internal ALB: Ensures traffic stays within the AWS network and is not exposed publicly.

PrivateLink endpoint service: Provides secure, private access to the ALB from the internal EC2 instances in other AWS accounts.

Traffic stays within the AWS global network, leveraging AWS security best practices and meeting the new policy requirements for no public internet exposure.This approach is secure, scalable, and minimizes management complexity compared to API Gateway solutions.

B and E are correct. A multi-node Amazon EKS cluster provides high availability for the Kubernetes control and workload layer, while Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus and Amazon Managed Grafana reduce monitoring overhead compared with self-managed Prometheus and Grafana. Amazon ECR enhanced scanning is also appropriate because it uses Amazon Inspector to scan container images for operating system and programming language package vulnerabilities. For storage, Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is the correct multiprotocol shared file system because it supports access patterns such as NFS and SMB through a fully managed service. EFS plus FSx for Windows splits storage across two services and does not provide one multiprotocol storage platform. A single-node EKS cluster is not highly available.

Option C is correct because hosting the web application in Amazon S3, storing the uploaded videos in Amazon S3, and using S3 event notifications to publish events to the SQS queue reduces the operational overhead of managing EC2 instances and EBS volumes. Amazon S3 can serve static content such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and media files directly from S3 buckets. Amazon S3 can also trigger AWS Lambda functions through S3 event notifications when new objects are created or existing objects are updated or deleted. AWS Lambda can process the SQS queue with an AWS Lambda function that calls the Amazon Rekognition API to categorize thevideos. This solution eliminates the need for custom recognition software and third-party dependencies345

Setting up an AWS Client VPN endpoint and integrating it with Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) using an AD Connector directory enables secure remote access to internal services deployed in a VPC. Enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) for AD Connector enhances security by adding an additional layer of authentication. This solution meets the company ' s requirements for secure remote access through a VPN with MFA, ensuring that the security policy is adhered to while providing a seamless experience for the remote engineers.

AWS Documentation on AWS Client VPN and AD Connector provides detailed instructions on setting up a Client VPN endpoint and integrating it with existing Active Directory for authentication. This solution aligns with AWS best practices for secure remote access to AWS resources.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

Option C offers a scalable and low-overhead solution for managing custom controls across multiple AWS accounts:

AWS Control Tower provides a pre-configured environment to set up and govern a secure, multi-account AWS environment based on AWS best practices.

Customizations for AWS Control Tower (CfCT) allows for the deployment of custom configurations and resources, such as AWS Config rules and IAM policies, across accounts and organizational units using AWS CloudFormation templates.

Amazon EventBridge integrates with AWS Control Tower to automate the deployment of customizations during account provisioning events, ensuring that all new accounts adhere to the defined controls without manual intervention.

This approach ensures consistent enforcement of custom controls across all accounts with minimal operational overhead.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/ec2/userguide/create-asg-instance-type-requirements.html#use-attribute-based-instance-type-selection-prerequisites

CodeCommit may use S3 on the back end (and it also uses DynamoDB on the back end) but I don ' t think they ' re stored in buckets that you can see or point Macie to. In fact, there are even solutions out there describing how to copy your repo from CodeCommit into S3 to back it up:https://docs.aws.amazon.com/prescriptive-guidance/latest/patterns/automate-event-driven-backups-from-codecommit-to-amazon-s3-using-codebuild-and-cloudwatch-events.html

Option D offers the lowest latency and highest efficiency:

Amazon DynamoDB global tables replicate data across multiple Regions, ensuring that the database is available and responsive in each Region.

Lambda@Edge allows the backend logic to execute at AWS edge locations, reducing the distance between the user ' s device and the code execution environment, thereby minimizing latency.

Amazon CloudFront serves as the content delivery network, routing requests to the nearest edge location where the Lambda@Edge function is executed.

Amazon Route 53 maps the DNS name to the CloudFront distribution, ensuring that users are directed to the optimal edge location.

This architecture ensures rapid response times and high availability for a globally distributed user base.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/security-best-practices.html#use-iam-to-control-accesshttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/using-iam-servicerole.html

Allows client machines to be able to connect to Session Manager using the AWS CLI instead of going through the AWS EC2 or AWS Server Manager console. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/session-manager-working-with-install-plugin.htmlhttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/session-manager-working-with-install-plugin.html#:~:text=aws%20ssm%20start%2Dsession%20%2D%2Dtarget%20instance%2Did

Creating the Template:

Start by creating a CloudFormation template that includes all the VPC resources. This template should accurately reflect the current state and configuration of the VPC.

Using the CloudFormation Console:

Open the AWS Management Console and navigate to CloudFormation.

Choose " Create stack " and then select " With existing resources (import resources) " .

Specifying the Template:

Upload the previously created template or specify the Amazon S3 URL where the template is stored.

Identifying the Resources:

On the " Identify resources " page, provide the identifiers for each VPC resource you wish to import. For example, for anAWS::EC2::VPCresource, use the VPC ID as the identifier.

Creating the Stack:

Complete the stack creation process by providing stack details and reviewing the changes. This will create a change set that includes the import operation.

Executing the Change Set:

Execute the change set to import the resources into the CloudFormation stack, making them managed by CloudFormation.

Verification and Drift Detection:

After the import is complete, run drift detection to ensure the actual configuration matches the template configuration.

This approach allows the company to manage their VPC and other resources via CloudFormation without the need to recreate resources, ensuring a smooth transition to automated infrastructure management.

References

Creating a stack from existing resources - AWS CloudFormation​(AWS Documentation)​.

Generating templates for existing resources - AWS CloudFormation​(AWS Documentation)​.

Bringing existing resources into CloudFormation management​(AWS Documentation)​.

The core issue is high latency when serving images during traffic spikes. The current design resizes images dynamically and caches them locally inside ECS containers. With AWS Fargate, containers are ephemeral and scale in and out based on load. Local container caches are not shared across tasks, so cache hit rates drop during scaling events, forcing repeated image resizing. This increases CPU usage, startup latency, and response times under load.

The lowest operational overhead and most effective solution is to offload image delivery entirely from the application layer and use edge caching. Amazon CloudFront is designed to cache static content at edge locations close to end users, dramatically reducing latency and backend load. Amazon S3 is a durable, highly scalable object store that is well suited for serving static assets such as images.

Option A moves image delivery to a CloudFront + S3 architecture. By pre-scaling images and storing them in S3, the application no longer performs on-demand image resizing during requests. CloudFront caches the images at edge locations, so subsequent requests are served directly from the edge with minimal latency. The ALB remains the origin for dynamic content, while image requests are routed to the S3 origin using cache behaviors. This approach is fully managed, highly scalable, and requires minimal changes to the application logic once images are pre-generated.

Option B introduces ElastiCache, which adds operational overhead and complexity. The application must manage cache keys, eviction, and failure scenarios. ElastiCache is better suited for low-latency data access patterns rather than large static objects like images, and it does not provide global edge caching.

Option C adds unnecessary complexity by introducing an Aurora database as part of the caching layer. Databases are not designed to manage cache metadata for static assets at scale, and this design increases operational overhead without improving latency compared to CloudFront.

Option D is not appropriate because API Gateway caching is intended for API responses, not for efficient delivery of large static binary objects such as images. Replacing the ALB with API Gateway also introduces request size, payload, and cost considerations and does not provide global edge caching comparable to CloudFront for image delivery.

Therefore, using Amazon CloudFront with Amazon S3 for pre-scaled images provides the lowest latency, highest scalability, and least operational overhead.

The company wants to serve static content from an S3 bucket during the maintenance period. To do this, the following steps are required:

Upload static informational content to the S3 bucket. This will provide the source of the content that will be served to the visitors.

Set the S3 bucket as a second origin in the original CloudFront distribution. Configure the distribution and the S3 bucket to use an origin access identity (OAI). Thiswill allow CloudFront to access the S3 bucket securely and prevent public access to the bucket.

During the weekly maintenance, edit the default cache behavior to use the S3 origin. Revert the change when the maintenance is complete. This will redirect all web requests to the S3 bucket instead of the Elastic Beanstalk domain name.

The other options are not correct because:

Creating a new CloudFront distribution is not necessary and would require changing the alternate domain name configuration.

Creating a cache behavior for the S3 origin on a new distribution would not work because the visitors would still access the original distribution using the alternate domain name.

Configuring Elastic Beanstalk to serve traffic from the S3 bucket is not possible and would not achieve the desired result.

Option Ais the most lightweight and scalable approach. By updating the VPC’sDHCP options set, you automatically configure all EC2 instances to use your on-premises NTP server. No extra software or infrastructure is required.

VPC DHCP Options Docs

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/waf-analyze-count-action-rules/

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/access-control-block-public-access.html

The best solution is to stream the data to an Amazon Kinesis data stream and create an AWS Lambda function to consume the Kinesis data stream and to analyze the data. Amazon Kinesis is a web service that can collect, process, and analyze real-time streaming data from various sources, such as sensors. AWS Lambda is a serverless computing service that can run code in response to events, such as incoming data from a Kinesis data stream. By using AWS Lambda, the company can avoid provisioning or managing servers and scale automatically based on the demand. Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) is a web service that enables applications to send and receive notifications from the cloud. By using Amazon SNS, the company can notify the operations team immediately if any of the parameters fall out of acceptable ranges. This solution meets all the requirements of the company.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/implementing-canary-deployments-of-aws-lambda-functions-with-alias-traffic-shifting/

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/configuration-aliases.html

Integrate ALB with OIDC IdP:

In the AWS Management Console, navigate to the Application Load Balancer (ALB) settings.

Configure the ALB to use the OpenID Connect (OIDC) IdP for authentication. This ensures that all requests routed through the ALB are authenticated using the IdP.

Set Up Authentication Rules:

Create a listener rule on the ALB that requires authentication. This rule will forward requests to the IdP for user authentication before allowing access to the backend services.

Restrict Unauthenticated Access:

Ensure the ALB only forwards requests to backend services if the user is authenticated. Unauthenticated requests should be blocked or redirected to the IdP for authentication.

Update CloudFront Configuration:

Modify the CloudFront distribution to forward authenticated requests to the ALB. Ensure that the ALB and API Gateway accept only requests coming through the CloudFront distribution to enforce consistent authentication and security.

By enforcing authentication at the ALB level, you ensure that all backend services are accessed only by authenticated users, enhancing the overall security of the web application

B: Archiving inactive user uploads toGlacier Deep Archiveoffers the lowest storage cost.

E: Since the users are in Europe only, usingPrice Class 200reduces CloudFront delivery cost without affecting performance.

A (expiration) deletes data — not suitable.

C is invalid (App Runner does not support Spot).

D might save little unless read traffic is high.

To develop a migration plan with accurate inventory and dependency data:

AWS Migration Hub provides a single view for tracking migration tasks and resources across multiple AWS services.

The AWS Application Discovery Agent (installed on servers) collects detailed data about running processes, system performance, and network connections.

Migration Hub Strategy Recommendations leverages this data to automatically identify application patterns, generate recommended AWS target services, and provide a detailed migration plan.This approach ensures accurate data collection, detailed dependency mapping, and tailored recommendations—crucial for a successful and right-sized migration to AWS.

to connect out from the private subnet you need an NAT gateway and since only one Elastic IP whitelisted on firewall its one NATGateway at time and if AZ failure happens Lambda creates a new NATGATEWAY in a different AZ using the Same Elastic IP ,dont be tempted to select D since application that needs to connect is on a private subnet whose outbound connections use the NATGateway Elastic IP

The company needs near-real-time visibility into which EC2 instances are connecting to on-premises databases. The correct telemetry source for network connection metadata at the VPC level is VPC Flow Logs. VPC Flow Logs capture information about IP traffic going to and from network interfaces in a VPC, including source/destination IPs, ports, protocol, and accept/reject decisions. This data can be used to infer which EC2 instance IPs are connecting to database IPs.

The company already uses Splunk on premises, so the solution should deliver these logs to Splunk with minimal delay and operational overhead. Amazon Data Firehose provides a fully managed way to deliver streaming data to supported destinations, including Splunk, with buffering and retry handling. CloudWatch Logs subscription filters can stream log events in near real time from CloudWatch Logs to destinations such as Firehose.

Option B uses the standard pattern: enable VPC Flow Logs to CloudWatch Logs, then create a CloudWatch Logs subscription filter that streams the flow logs to a Firehose delivery stream configured with Splunk as the destination. Because CloudWatch Logs subscription deliveries can batch log events, using a Firehose preprocessing Lambda to extract individual log events is a common approach to format records in a way that Splunk ingests cleanly. This yields near-real-time delivery with low operational overhead.

Option A introduces delay because it exports CloudWatch logs periodically to S3 and requires Splunk to poll S3. It also requires long-lived access keys and periodic batch exports, which is not near real time.

Option C relies on application-level logging changes and batch analytics with Athena, which is not near real time and requires substantial changes and additional pipelines.

Option D is over-engineered for the stated requirement. Using Flink and anomaly detection focuses on anomalies rather than simply identifying connections, and it adds significant operational complexity compared to direct delivery of flow logs to Splunk via Firehose.

Therefore, streaming VPC Flow Logs from CloudWatch Logs to Splunk using a Firehose delivery stream and a subscription filter is the best approach.

Implementing a CloudFront function that inspects the JWT information and appropriately forwards requests either to the ticketing service or the waiting room service within the Amazon ECS cluster enhances reliability during high load periods. This solution segregates the load between the main application and the waiting room, ensuring that the ticketing service remains unaffected by the high load on the waiting room. Using CloudFront functions for request routing based on JWT attributes allows for efficient distribution of user traffic, thereby maintaining the application ' s availability and performance during peak times.

AWS Documentation on Amazon CloudFront Functions provides guidance on creating and deploying functions that can inspect and manipulate HTTP(S) requests at the edge, close to the users. This approach is in line with best practices for scaling and managing high-traffic web applications.

The best solution for this problem is to update the visibility timeout for the SQS queue to 3 hours. This is because when the visibility timeout is set to 1 hour, it means that if the EC2 instance doesn ' t process the message within an hour, it will be moved to the dead-letter queue. By increasing the visibility timeout to 3 hours, this should give the EC2 instance enough time to process the message before it gets moved to the dead-letter queue. Additionally, configuring scale-in protection for the EC2 instances during processing will help to ensure that the instances are not terminated while the messages are being processed.

Creating an AWS Cost and Usage Report for the organization and defining tags and cost categories in the report will allow for detailed cost reporting for the different companies that have been consolidated into one organization. By creating a table in Amazon Athena and an Amazon QuickSight dataset based on the Athena table, the finance team will be able to easily query and generate reports on the costs for all the companies. The dataset can then be shared with the finance team for them to use for their reporting needs.

https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/implementations/automations-for-aws-firewall-manager/

In this solution, AWS Firewall Manager is used to manage AWS WAF rules across accounts in the organization. An AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store parameter is used to store account numbers and OUs to manage. This parameter can be updated as needed to add or remove accounts or OUs. An Amazon EventBridge rule is used to identify any changes to the parameter and to invoke an AWS Lambda function to update the security policy in the Firewall Manager administrative account. This solution allows for easy management of AWS WAF rules across multiple accounts with minimal operational overhead

Transfer acceleration. S3 Transfer Acceleration utilizes the Amazon CloudFront global network of edge locations to accelerate the transfer of data to and from S3 buckets. By enabling S3 Transfer Acceleration on the centralized S3 bucket, the users in Europe will experience faster uploads as their data will be routed through the closest CloudFront edge location.

The requirement is to test IPv6 connectivity in an AWS VPC. When a VPC is associated with an IPv6 CIDR block, subnets can be configured to assign IPv6 addresses to resources, and routing must be correctly configured to allow IPv6 traffic to flow.

For public IPv6 connectivity, IPv6 traffic must be routed through an internet gateway. Unlike IPv4, IPv6 addresses are globally routable by default, and there is no concept of NAT for IPv6 egress through a NAT gateway. Therefore, for an EC2 instance in a public subnet that needs inbound and outbound IPv6 connectivity, the subnet route table must include a route that sends IPv6 traffic (::/0) to an internet gateway. Option C correctly describes this configuration and is a standard pattern for enabling IPv6 access for public subnets.

For private subnets that require outbound-only IPv6 connectivity (for example, instances that must initiate connections to the internet but must not accept inbound connections), AWS provides an egress-only internet gateway. An egress-only internet gateway allows outbound IPv6 traffic while blocking unsolicited inbound IPv6 traffic, similar in intent to how a NAT gateway is used for IPv4. Option E correctly uses an egress-only internet gateway for IPv6 traffic from a private subnet, making it the correct choice for private IPv6 connectivity testing.

Option A focuses on Direct Connect integration. Although Direct Connect can support IPv6, associating a virtual private gateway with a Direct Connect gateway is not required simply to test IPv6 connectivity to customers worldwide. This option also does not explicitly configure IPv6 internet routing and therefore does not directly meet the stated requirement.

Option B is incorrect because NAT gateways do not support IPv6. NAT gateways are IPv4-only services, so routing IPv6 traffic to a NAT gateway is not a valid configuration.

Option D is also incorrect because NAT instances do not provide a supported or recommended solution for IPv6 traffic. NAT-based designs are intended for IPv4 address translation and are not used for IPv6 connectivity in AWS.

Therefore, using an internet gateway for public IPv6 subnets and an egress-only internet gateway for private IPv6 subnets is the correct and supported approach.

By integrating a Lambda pre-provisioning hook into the AWS IoT Core provisioning template, the serial number can be validated against the CA before the device is allowed to send data.

Using allow-auto-registration ensures that only installed devices can register and send data, meeting the security requirement that sensors cannot send data until physically installed.

This approach follows AWS IoT’s secure onboarding pattern for managing device identity and authorization.

The cleanest design is an AWS Config organization conformance pack deployed centrally. Conformance packs are YAML templates that can include AWS Config managed rules, custom rules, and remediation actions. AWS Config also supports managing conformance packs across all member accounts in an AWS Organizations organization, allowing centralized deployment, update, and deletion. The PutOrganizationConformancePack API deploys a conformance pack across member accounts and can create AWS Config rules and remediation actions without requiring member-account IAM permissions for those individual rule operations. Because the requirement includes four custom rules and five managed rules, the conformance pack must include all nine rules. Deploying only custom rules leaves the managed rules outside the update model. CloudFormation StackSets add unnecessary operational overhead and do not provide the same native organization conformance-pack governance.

C: Multipart uploads can leave incomplete parts behind, which incur storage costs. Expiring them after 7 days minimizes waste and saves cost.

E: Since objects are infrequently accessed after 180 days, transitioning toS3 Standard-IAis cost-effective, especially for large files > 128 KB (your 100 MB+ files qualify).

Ais for shifting download cost, not reducing your S3 storage expenses.

Bhelps with upload speed butincreases cost.

Dis too aggressive; Glacier is not suited for access patterns within the first few days.

This option allows the company to use a single VPC to host multiple test environments that are isolated from each other by using different subnets and security groups1. By including a transit gateway attachment and related routing configurations, the company can enable the test environmentsto communicate with the central server in the on-premises data center through a VPN connection2. By using AWS CloudFormation to deploy all test environments into the VPC, the company can automate the creation and deletion of test environments without any manual intervention3. This option also minimizes the operational overhead by reducing the number of VPCs, accounts, and resources that need to be managed.

Working with VPCs and subnets

Working with transit gateways

Working with AWS CloudFormation stacks

Cross-zone load balancing enables traffic to be distributed evenly across all registered instances in all enabled Availability Zones. However, this also increases data transfer charges between Availability Zones. By turning off cross-zone load balancing, the serviceprovider applications can reduce inter-Availability Zone data transfer costs. Similarly, by using the Availability Zone-specific endpoint service, the service consumer applications can ensure that they connect to the nearest service provider application in the same Availability Zone, avoiding cross-Availability Zone data transfer charges. References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/network/load-balancer-target-groups.html#cross-zone-load-balancing

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/vpce-interface.html#vpce-interface-dns

The correct answer is C. This option uses AWS CloudTrail to create a trail in the organization’s management account that applies to all accounts in the organization. This way, the company can centrally manage and audit all API calls to AWS resources across multiple accounts and regions. The company also needs to create a new Amazon S3 bucket with versioning turned on to store the logs. Versioning helps protect against accidental or malicious deletion of log files by keeping multiple versions of each object in the bucket. The company also needs to enable MFA delete and encryption on the S3 bucket to further enhance the security and durability of the data store.

Option A is incorrect because it uses an existing S3 bucket in the organization’s management account to store the logs. This may not be optimal for regulatory compliance, as the existing bucket may have different permissions, encryption settings, or lifecycle policies than a dedicated bucket for CloudTrail logs.

Option B is incorrect because it requires creating a new CloudTrail trail in each member account of the organization. This adds operational overhead and complexity, as the company would need to manage multiple trails and S3 buckets across multiple accounts and regions.

Option D is incorrect because it requires configuring Amazon SNS to send log-file delivery notifications to an external management system that will track the logs. This adds unnecessary complexity and cost, as CloudTrail already provides log-file integrity validation and log-file digest delivery features that can help verify the authenticity and integrity of log files.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/placement-groups.html#placement- groups-cluster

You can use a Glue crawler to populate the AWS Glue Data Catalog with tables. The Lambda function can be triggered using S3 event notifications when object create events occur. The Lambda function will then trigger the Glue ETL job to transform the records masking the sensitive data and modifying the output format to JSON. This solution meets all requirements.

The company should use Amazon Aurora global database and Amazon DynamoDB global table to deploy the data tier components across two Regions. Amazon Aurora globaldatabase is a feature that allows a single Aurora database to span multiple AWS Regions, enabling low-latency global reads and fast recovery from Region-wide outages1. Amazon DynamoDB global table is a feature that allows a single DynamoDB table to span multiple AWS Regions, enabling low-latency global reads and writes and fast recovery from Region-wide outages2.

When an IAM user appears to have the correct permissions but still receives Access Denied errors, especially in an AWS Organizations environment, the effective permissions must be evaluated across all permission layers. In AWS, permissions are the intersection of all applicable controls, and an explicit deny at any layer overrides any allow.

First, because the company uses AWS Organizations, service control policies (SCPs) must be evaluated. SCPs define the maximum permissions that accounts or organizational units can have. Even if an IAM user or IAM policy allows an action, an SCP attached to the account or OU can explicitly or implicitly deny that action. If an SCP does not allow s3:ListAllMyBuckets or related S3 read actions, the IAM user will not be able to list buckets in the S3 console and will see no buckets at all. Therefore, checking the SCPs applied to the OU or account is a required troubleshooting step.

Second, IAM permissions boundaries can further restrict the effective permissions of an IAM user. A permissions boundary defines the maximum permissions that an IAM user can exercise, regardless of what their attached policies allow. If the permissions boundary does not include the required Amazon S3 read-only permissions (such as s3:ListAllMyBuckets or s3:GetBucketLocation), the user will receive access denied errors even though the user’s IAM policy appears to allow read-only access. Reviewing whether a permissions boundary is attached, and whether it allows the necessary S3 actions, is essential.

Option A (checking bucket policies) can be relevant for access to specific buckets or objects, but a user seeing no buckets at all in the S3 console is more commonly caused by missing or denied account-level list permissions rather than individual bucket policies. Bucket policies generally do not control the ability to list all buckets in an account unless they contain explicit denies, which is less common as a first troubleshooting step in an Organizations setup.

Option B (checking ACLs) is less relevant because ACLs primarily control object-level and bucket-level access and are not typically used to manage console-level visibility of all buckets in an account. ACLs also do not commonly block the ListAllMyBuckets action.

Option E is incorrect because IAM users do not require IAM roles to access AWS services. Roles are assumed by users or services, but the presence or absence of a role attached to an IAM user does not affect the user’s direct permissions.

Therefore, the most appropriate troubleshooting steps are to check the SCPs applied through AWS Organizations and to verify whether an IAM permissions boundary is restricting the user’s effective permissions.

The company has migrated an application to EC2 and will deploy it in an additional Region. The usage is expected to be stable for 3 years, but parts of the application will be redesigned over the next 2 years to use AWS Lambda. Therefore, the company will gradually shift a portion of its compute usage from EC2 to Lambda.

Savings Plans are a flexible pricing model that provide lower prices in exchange for a commitment to a consistent amount of compute usage (measured in dollars per hour) for a 1- or 3-year term. There are two main types of Savings Plans:

• Compute Savings Plans: Apply to any EC2 instance usage regardless of Region, instance family, OS, tenancy, and also apply to AWS Fargate and AWS Lambda usage.

• EC2 Instance Savings Plans: Apply only to a specific instance family in a specific Region.

In this scenario, because there will be a gradual migration from EC2-based compute to Lambda-based compute, a plan that only applies to EC2 (EC2 Instance Savings Plan) risks underutilization as more usage moves to Lambda. Compute Savings Plans, by contrast, can cover EC2 now and Lambda later, maintaining high utilization of the commitment and maximizing effective discount.

Option A recommends evaluating Savings Plans recommendations each year in AWS Cost Management and purchasing a 1-year Compute Savings Plan based on those recommendations. The Cost Management tools and Cost Explorer provide Savings Plans recommendations based on actual usage patterns. Buying 1-year Compute Savings Plans and re-evaluating annually allows the company to adjust its committed spend each year as portions of the application move from EC2 to Lambda. This approach maximizes the chance that the Savings Plans coverage matches the actual combined EC2 and Lambda usage over time and avoids being locked into an EC2-only commitment that becomes increasingly underutilized.

Option B is not optimal because it recommends a 3-year EC2 Instance Savings Plan. That commitment applies only to specific EC2 instance families in a Region and does not apply to Lambda. As the company migrates portions of its workloads to Lambda, the EC2 Instance Savings Plan may become underutilized, reducing the effective discount and potentially increasing overall cost. Compute Optimizer also does not provide Savings Plans purchase recommendations; Savings Plans recommendations come from Cost Management and Cost Explorer.

Option C uses 1-year EC2 Instance Savings Plans and adjusts the commitment each year. While this gives some flexibility, EC2 Instance Savings Plans still do not apply to Lambda usage, so over time there is a risk of underutilizing the EC2 commitment as the Lambda portion grows. This does not maximize savings relative to Compute Savings Plans, which can cover both services.

Option D proposes a 3-year EC2 Instance Savings Plan and suggests decreasing the hourly commitment during the term as workloads move to Lambda. However, Savings Plans commitments cannot be decreased during the term. The company would remain obligated to the original 3-year commitment even if EC2 usage drops, leading to wasted commitment.

Therefore, purchasing 1-year Compute Savings Plans each year based on Savings Plans recommendations from AWS Cost Management (option A) is the best strategy to maximize cost savings while the company transitions part of the workload from EC2 to Lambda.

D is correct because AWS Private CA supports resource sharing through AWS RAM, which allows you to share the CA across accounts in your AWS Organization securely. It ensures the CA private key remains secure and is never exported.

A is invalid because you cannot export a CA’s private key, and importing/exporting CAs this way is unsupported.

B is incorrect — IAM policies alone are not sufficient to share Private CAs across accounts.

C is not applicable because resource-based delegation policies do not apply to AWS Private CA.

In the past, EBS can be attached only to one ec2 instance but not anymore but there are limitations like - it works only on io1/io2 instance types and many others as described here. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ebs-volumes-multi.html EFS has shareable storage In terms of performance, Amazon EFS is optimized for workloads that require high levels of aggregate throughput and IOPS, whereas EBS is optimized for low-latency, random access I/O operations. Amazon EFS is designed to scale throughput and capacity automatically as your storage needs grow, while EBS volumes can be resized on demand.

A is correct becausedefault AWS-managed KMS keys cannot be shared across accounts. Therefore, the only way to enable cross-account backup is to restore each RDS instance using acustomer-managed key (CMK)andshare that keywith the central account.

Then, AWS Backup can performcross-account backup operationsusing AWS Organizations trusted access and backup policies.

Option B is incorrect due to theinability to share default keys.

Option C and D are technically invalid — RDS snapshots cannot be decrypted or re-encrypted manually.

Configuring the workload to use topology spread constraints that are based on Availability Zone will maximize the node resilience of the workload node groups. This will ensure that the pods are evenly distributed across different Availability Zones, reducing the impact of failures or disruptions in one Availability Zone2. This will also improve the availability and scalability of the workload node groups, as they can leverage the low-latency, high-throughput, and highly redundant networking between Availability Zones1.

Cross account role should be created in destination(member) account. The role has trust entity to master account.

The requirements specify cross-Region failover with an RPO of 5 minutes and an RTO of 20 minutes for a large (10 TB) database. Achieving a low RPO in a secondary Region typically requires near-continuous replication, not periodic snapshots. Achieving a 20-minute RTO requires that the standby data store already exists in the secondary Region and can be promoted quickly.

A cross-Region read replica provides continuous asynchronous replication from the primary Region to a replica in the secondary Region. This is the standard managed approach for cross-Region disaster recovery for Amazon RDS engines that support read replicas. With a read replica already running in the secondary Region, failover can be accomplished by promoting the replica to a standalone primary database instance. This supports an RTO target like 20 minutes because the data is already present and the promotion operation is typically faster than restoring from a full snapshot, especially at 10 TB scale.

Option B describes creating an RDS Multi-AZ DB cluster in the primary Region and a cross-Region read replica in the secondary Region. Multi-AZ addresses high availability within the primary Region, while the cross-Region replica addresses disaster recovery. The option also includes automation using CloudWatch alarms and a Lambda function to promote the replica when a failure is detected. This supports the required RTO by reducing manual intervention time and supports the RPO by using continuous replication.

Option A is not practical for RPO 5 minutes at 10 TB. Taking and copying snapshots every 5 minutes would be operationally heavy and would not complete within the required window; snapshot creation and cross-Region copy are not designed for such high-frequency near-real-time DR. It also risks missing the RPO due to snapshot completion time.

Option C introduces unnecessary complexity and additional services. Creating a second cluster only at failure time is not compatible with a 20-minute RTO for a 10 TB database, and using DMS for continuous sync is more development and operational work than using native RDS replication. This is not the least overhead or most direct DR design.

Option D is incorrect as stated because cross-Region read replicas are not automatically failed over and promoted by an “automated failover” feature in the way Multi-AZ failover works within a Region. Automated backups do not provide near-real-time cross-Region recovery to meet a 5-minute RPO. The usual approach for cross-Region is to create the replica and then promote it through a controlled process, which can be automated via monitoring and Lambda as in option B.

Therefore, using a cross-Region read replica with automation to promote it provides the necessary RPO/RTO with a managed service approach.

DynamoDB with TTL, cheaper for sustained throughput of small items + suited for fast retrievals. S3 cheaper for storage only, much higher costs with writes. RDS not designed for this use case.

The company should create a second target group that is referenced by the ALB. The company should deploy the new logic to EC2 instances in this new target group. The company should update the ALB listener rule to use weighted target groups. The company should configure ALB target group stickiness. This solution will meet the requirements because weighted target groups are a feature that enables you to distribute traffic across multiple target groups using a single listener rule. You can specify a weight for each target group, which determines the percentage of requests that are routed to that target group. For example, if you specify two target groups, each with a weight of 10, each target group receives half the requests1. By creating a second target group and deploying the new logic to EC2 instances in this new target group, the company can have two versions of its business logic running in parallel. By updating the ALB listener rule to use weighted target groups,the company can control how much traffic is sent to each version. By configuring ALB target group stickiness, the company can ensure that a customer uses the same version of the business logic during the testing window. Target group stickiness is a feature that enables you to bind a user’s session to a specific target within a target group for the duration of the session2.

The other options are not correct because:

Creating a second ALB and deploying the new logic to a set of EC2 instances in a new Auto Scaling group would not be as cost-effective or simple as using weighted target groups. A second ALB would incur additional charges and require more configuration and management. Updating the Route 53 record to use weighted routing would not ensure that a customer uses the same version of the business logic during the testing window, as DNS caching could affect how requests are routed.

Creating a new launch configuration for the Auto Scaling group and replacing it on the Auto Scaling group would not allow for gradual traffic shifting between versions. A launch configuration is a template that an Auto Scaling group uses to launch EC2 instances. You can specify information such as the AMI ID, instance type, key pair, security groups, and block device mapping for your instances3. However, replacing the launch configuration on an Auto Scaling group would affect all instances in that group, not just 10% of customers.

Creating a second Auto Scaling group and changing the ALB routing algorithm to least outstanding requests (LOR) would not allow for controlled traffic shifting between versions. A second Auto Scaling group would require more configuration and management. The LOR routing algorithm is a feature that enables you to route traffic based on how quickly targets respond to requests. The load balancer selects a target from the target group with the fewest outstanding requests4. However, this algorithm does not take into account customer sessions or weights.

Store the PGP Private Key:

Step 1: In the AWS Management Console, navigate to AWS Secrets Manager.

Step 2: Store the PGP private key in Secrets Manager. Ensure the key is encrypted and properly secured.

Set Up the Transfer Family Managed Workflow:

Step 1: In the AWS Transfer Family console, create a new managed workflow.

Step 2: Add a nominal step to the workflow that includes the decryption of the files. Configure this step with the PGP decryption parameters, referencing the PGP private key stored in Secrets Manager.

Step 3: Associate this workflow with the Transfer Family SFTP server, ensuring that incoming files are automatically decrypted upon receipt.

This solution ensures that the data is securely decrypted as it is transferred from the SFTP server to the S3 bucket, automating the decryption process and leveraging AWS Secrets Manager for key management.

References

AWS Transfer Family Documentation

Using AWS Secrets Manager for Managing Secrets

AWS Transfer Family Managed Workflows

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/organizations/latest/userguide/orgs_manage_org_support-all-features.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/singlesignon/latest/userguide/get-started-prereqs-considerations.html

Auto Scaling Group with Application Load Balancer:

Moving the Tomcat server to an Auto Scaling group ensures that the number of instances adjusts dynamically based on the traffic load. An Application Load Balancer (ALB) distributes incoming traffic across multiple instances, improving the application ' s reliability and availability.

Migrate to Amazon Aurora with Replica:

Migrating the MySQL database to Amazon Aurora and adding an Aurora Replica enhances the database ' s scalability and availability. Aurora is optimized for performance, and replicas help distribute read traffic, reducing the load on the primary instance.

Additional Public Subnet:

Creating an additional public subnet in a different Availability Zone enhances fault tolerance. This ensures that the website remains accessible even if one Availability Zone experiences issues.

References

AWS Well-Architected Framework

Amazon Aurora Documentation

AWS DMS can migrate data from a source database to a target database in AWS, using change data capture (CDC) to replicate ongoing changes and keep the databases in sync. Setting Amazon S3 as a target allows storing the migrated data in a durable and cost-effective storage service. When the source and destination are fully synchronized, the data can be loaded from Amazon S3 into an Amazon RDS for Microsoft SQL Server DB instance, which is a managed database service that simplifies database administration tasks. References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/dms/latest/userguide/CHAP_Source.SQLServer.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/dms/latest/userguide/CHAP_Target.S3.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_SQLServer.html

The correct answer is D. Deploy the application on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) with AWS Fargate and enable auto scaling behind an Application Load Balancer. Create additional read replicas for the DB instance. Create an Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka cluster and configure the application services to use the cluster. Store static content in Amazon S3 behind an Amazon CloudFront distribution.

Option D meets the requirements of the scenario because it allows you to reduce operational overhead and support the product release by using the following AWS services and features:

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) is a fully managed service that allows you to run Kubernetes applications on AWS without needing to install, operate, or maintain your own Kubernetes control plane. You can use Amazon EKS to deploy your containerized application services on a Kubernetes cluster that is compatible with your existing tools and processes.

AWS Fargate is a serverless compute engine that eliminates the need to provision and manage servers for your containers. You can use AWS Fargate as the launch type for your Amazon EKS pods, which are the smallest deployable units of computing in Kubernetes. You can also enable auto scaling for your pods, which allows you to automatically adjust the number of pods based on the demand or custom metrics.

An Application Load Balancer (ALB) is a load balancer that distributes traffic across multiple targets in multiple Availability Zones using HTTP or HTTPS protocols. You can use an ALB to balance the load across your Amazon EKS pods and provide high availability and fault tolerance for your application.

Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL is a fully managed relational database service that supports the PostgreSQL open source database engine. You can create additional read replicas for your DB instance, which are copies of your primary DB instance that can handle read-only queries and improve performance. You can also useread replicas to scale out beyond the capacity of a single DB instance for read-heavy workloads.

Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK) is a fully managed service that makes it easy to build and run applications that use Apache Kafka to process streaming data. Apache Kafka is an open source platform for building real-time data pipelines and streaming applications. You can use Amazon MSK to create and manage a Kafka cluster that is highly available, secure, and compatible with your existing Kafka applications. You can also configure your application services to use the Amazon MSK cluster as a source or destination of streaming data.

Amazon S3 is an object storage service that offers high durability, availability, and scalability. You can store static content such as images, videos, or documents in Amazon S3 buckets, which are containers for objects. You can also serve static content directly from Amazon S3 using public URLs or presigned URLs.

Amazon CloudFront is a fast content delivery network (CDN) service that securely delivers data, videos, applications, and APIs to customers globally with low latency and high transfer speeds. You can use Amazon CloudFront to create a distribution that caches static content from your Amazon S3 bucket at edge locations closer to your users. This can improve the performance and user experience of your application.

Option A is incorrect because creating an EC2 Auto Scaling group behind an ALB would not reduce operational overhead as much as using AWS Fargate with Amazon EKS, as you would still need to manage EC2 instances for your containers. Creating additional read replicas for the DB instance would not provide high availability or fault tolerance in case of a failure of the primary DB instance, unlike deploying the DB instance in Multi-AZ mode. Creating Amazon Kinesis data streams would not be compatible with your existing Apache Kafka applications, unlike using Amazon MSK.

Option B is incorrect because creating an EC2 Auto Scaling group behind an ALB would not reduce operational overhead as much as using AWS Fargate with Amazon EKS, as you would still need to manage EC2 instances for your containers. Creating Amazon Kinesis data streams would not be compatible with your existing Apache Kafka applications, unlike using Amazon MSK. Storing and serving static content directly from Amazon S3 would not provide optimal performance and user experience, unlike using Amazon CloudFront.

Option C is incorrect because deploying the application on a Kubernetes cluster created on the EC2 instances behind an ALB would not reduce operational overhead as much as using AWS Fargate with Amazon EKS, as you would still need to manage EC2 instances and Kubernetes control plane for your containers. Using Amazon API Gateway to interact with the application would add an unnecessary layer of complexity and cost to your architecture, as you would need to create and maintain an API gateway that proxies requests to your ALB.

https://aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/file/

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/fsx/latest/WindowsGuide/migrate-files-to-fsx-datasync.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/prereqs-operating-systems.html#prereqs-os-windows-server

The company should create a Network Load Balancer (NLB) and associate it with one static IP address in multiple Availability Zones. The company should also create an ALB-type target group for the NLB and add the existing ALB. The company should add the NLB IP addresses to the firewall appliance and update the clients to connect to the NLB. This solution will allow traffic flow to AWS from the on-premises network by using static IP addresses that can be added to the firewall appliance’s allow list. The NLB will forward requests to the ALB, which will use path-based routing to forward requests to the target groups.

The workload uses EC2 Spot Instances, which are subject to capacity availability constraints. Using a single instance type significantly increases the risk of launch failures when Spot capacity for that instance type is constrained. This directly impacts application reliability and increases user wait times.

Attribute-based instance type selection allows Auto Scaling to choose from multiple compatible instance types based on defined requirements such as vCPU count, memory, and architecture. This improves the probability that Spot capacity is available at launch time because Auto Scaling can select from a broader pool of instance types instead of a single one.

Option D correctly applies attribute-based instance type selection within a new version of the existing launch template. Auto Scaling groups are designed to work with launch templates, and updating the template version is the modern and recommended approach. This change increases Spot placement flexibility and reliability without altering application behavior or introducing additional infrastructure.

Option A is incorrect because launch configurations are an older construct and do not support attribute-based instance type selection. They are also not recommended for new or updated Auto Scaling designs.

Option B does not address the root cause of Spot launch failures. Simply using a larger instance type may actually reduce available Spot capacity and worsen reliability.

Option C increases the number of placement groups, but placement groups do not solve Spot capacity shortages. They influence instance placement for networking or latency characteristics, not Spot availability across instance types.

Therefore, updating the launch template to use attribute-based instance type selection is the most effective way to improve reliability for a Spot-based Auto Scaling workload.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/stacksets-orgs-manage-auto-deployment.html

It is the fastest when it comes to rollback and deploying changes every hour

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-securely-provide-database-credentials-to-lambda-functions-by-using-aws-secrets-manager/

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/secretsmanager/latest/userguide/rotating-secrets.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/secretsmanager/latest/userguide/integrating_cloudformation.html

Amazon AppStream 2.0 offers a streamlined solution for rehosting a Windows-based desktop application on AWS with minimal development effort. By creating an AppStream 2.0image that includes the application and using an On-Demand fleet for streaming, the application becomes accessible from any device, including Linux machines. AppStream 2.0 user pools can be used for authentication, simplifying access management without the need for extensive changes to the application or infrastructure.

AWS Documentation on Amazon AppStream 2.0 provides insights into setting up application streaming solutions. This approach is recommended for delivering desktop applications to diverse operating systems without the complexity of managing virtual desktops or extensive application refactoring.

This option allows the solutions architect to use a private hosted zone to host DNS records that are only accessible within the VPC1. By associating the private hosted zone with the VPC, the solutions architect can ensure that DNS queries from the VPC are routed to the private hosted zone2. By activating the enableDnsSupport attribute and the enableDnsHostnames attribute for the VPC, the solutions architect can enable DNS resolution and hostname assignment for instances in the VPC3. By creating a new VPC DHCP options set, and configuring domain-name-servers=AmazonProvidedDNS, the solutions architect can use Amazon-provided DNS servers to resolve DNS queries from instances in the VPC4. By associating the new DHCP options set with the VPC, the solutions architect can apply the DNS settings to all instances in the VPC5.

What is Amazon Route 53 Resolver?

Associating a private hosted zone with your VPC

Using DNS with your VPC

DHCP options sets

Modifying your DHCP options

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/prescriptive-guidance/latest/patterns/send-a-notification-when-an-iam-user-is-created.html

The best solution is to create a tag policy that contains the allowed project tag values in the organization’s management account and create an SCP that denies the cloudformation:CreateStack API operation unless a project tag is added. A tag policy is a type of policy that can help standardize tags across resources in the organization’s accounts. A tag policy can specify the allowed tag keys, values, and case treatment for compliance. A service control policy (SCP) is a type of policy that can restrict the actions that users and roles can perform in the organization’s accounts. An SCP can deny access to specific API operations unless certain conditions are met, such as having a specific tag. By creating a tag policy in the management account and attaching it to each OU, the organization can enforce consistent tagging across all accounts. By creating an SCP that denies the cloudformation:CreateStack API operation unless a project tag is added, the organization can prevent users from creating new resources without proper tagging. This solution will meet the requirements with the least effort, as it does not involve creating additional resources or modifying existing ones. References: Tag policies - AWS Organizations, Service control policies - AWS Organizations, AWS CloudFormation User Guide

The correct answer is A.

A. This solution meets the requirements because it allows the company to create different usage plans for each customer, with different request quotas and time periods. The usage plans can be associated with API keys, which can be distributed to the users of each customer. The API Gateway REST API can invoke the Lambda function using a proxy integration, which passes the request data to the function as input and returns the function output as the response.This solution is scalable, secure, and cost-effective12

B. This solution is incorrect because API Gateway HTTP APIs do not support usage plans or API keys.These features are only available for REST APIs3

C. This solution is incorrect because it does not provide a way to enforce request quotas for each customer. Lambda function aliases can be used to create different versions of the function, but they do not have any quota mechanism.Moreover, this solution exposes the Lambda function URLs directly to the customers, which is not secure or recommended4

D. This solution is incorrect because it does not provide a way to differentiate between customers or users. AWS WAF rate-based rules can be used to limit requests based on IP addresses, but they do not support any other criteria such as user agents or headers.Moreover, this solution adds unnecessary complexity and cost by using an ALB and a VPC56

Option C is correct because Amazon WorkSpaces provides persistent cloud desktops, which best replicates the existing desktop experience for users who currently use full Windows and Linux workstations with multiple applications. AD Connector allows WorkSpaces authentication to proxy to the company’s existing on-premises Active Directory, so users can continue using their existing identity credentials. MFA for WorkSpaces with AD Connector is implemented through RADIUS, not merely by turning on a console setting. AWS documentation specifically states that AD Connector can integrate with existing RADIUS-based MFA infrastructure and that WorkSpaces MFA can use a RADIUS server that is hosted on premises or in AWS. AppStream 2.0 is better for application streaming, not full desktop continuity. Option A is technically incomplete because it omits the RADIUS MFA requirement.

 AWS Trusted Advisor is a service that provides real-time guidance to help users provision their resources following AWS best practices1. One of the Trusted Advisor checks is “Low Utilization Amazon EC2 Instances”, which identifies EC2 instances that appear to be underutilized based on CPU, network I/O, and disk I/O metrics1. This check can help users optimize the cost and size of their EC2 instances by recommending smaller or more appropriate instance types.

AWS Compute Optimizer is a service that analyzes the configuration and utilization metrics of AWS resources and generates optimization recommendations to reduce the costand improve the performance of workloads2. Compute Optimizer supports four types of AWS resources: EC2 instances, EBS volumes, ECS services on AWSFargate, and Lambdafunctions2. For EC2 instances, Compute Optimizer evaluates the vCPUs, memory, storage, and other specifications, as well as the CPU utilization, network in and out, disk read and write, and other utilization metrics of currently running instances3. It then recommends optimal instance types based on price-performance trade-offs.

Option A is incorrect because purchasing AWS Business Support or AWS Enterprise Support for the account will not directly help with cost-optimization and sizing of EC2 instances. However, these support plans do provide access to more Trusted Advisor checks than the basic support plan1.

Option C is incorrect because installing the Amazon CloudWatch agent and configuring memory metric collection on the EC2 instances will not provide any optimization recommendations by itself. However, memory metrics can be used by Compute Optimizer to enhance its recommendations if enabled3.

Option E is incorrect because creating an EC2 Instance Savings Plan for the AWS Regions, instance families, and operating systems of interest will not help with cost-optimization and sizing of EC2 instances. Savings Plans are a flexible pricing model that offer lower prices on Amazon EC2 usage in exchange for a commitment to a consistent amount of usage for a 1- or 3-year term4. Savings Plans do not affect the configuration or utilization of EC2 instances.

Enabling all features for the organization will enable using AWS Firewall Manager to centrally configure and manage firewall rules across multiple AWS accounts1. Using AWS Firewall Manager to deploy AWS WAF rules in all accounts for all CloudFront distributions will enable providing baseline protection for the OWASP top 10 web application vulnerabilities2. AWS Firewall Manager supports AWS WAF rules that can help protect against common web exploits such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting3. Configuring redirection of HTTP requests to HTTPS requests in CloudFront will enable encrypting the data in transit using SSL/TLS.

D is correct because thehealth check grace perioddefines how long Auto Scaling waits after launching an instance before checking its health status. With the larger content added to the S3 bucket, the instance initialization (via user data) is taking longer. Increasing the grace period allows the instance time to complete startup tasks before it’s marked as unhealthy.

Option A would not necessarily reduce startup time — the issue is likely network latency or the size of the content.

Option B only affects the timeout for health check responses, not the delay before they begin.

Option C is not applicable unless the health check path itself is invalid (which isn ' t mentioned).

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/organizations/latest/userguide/orgs_manage_policies_inheritance_auth.html

The correct answer is D. Use a scheduled scaling policy for the EC2 instances. Host the database on an Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL Multi-AZ DB cluster. Create an Amazon EventBridge rule that invokes an AWS Lambda function to create a larger Aurora Replica before a sale event. Fail over to the larger Aurora Replica. Create another EventBridge rule that invokes another Lambda function to scale down the Aurora Replica after the sale event.

This solution will meet the requirements of maximizing availability during the sale events. A scheduled scaling policy for the EC2 instances will allow the application to scale up and down according to the predefined schedule of the sale events. Hosting the database on an Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL Multi-AZ DB cluster will provide high availability and durability, as well as compatibility with PostgreSQL. Creating an Amazon EventBridge rule that invokes an AWS Lambda function to create a larger Aurora Replica before a sale event will ensure that the database can handle the increased read traffic during the peak periods. Failing over to the larger Aurora Replica will make it the primary instance, which will also improve the write performance of the database. Creating another EventBridge rule that invokes another Lambda function to scale down the Aurora Replica after the sale event will reduce the cost and resources of the database.

Option A is correct because the problem is not simply disaster recovery capacity; it is configuration drift that delays failover. CloudFormation StackSets provide consistent infrastructure deployment across accounts and Regions. SCPs and IAM policies reduce unauthorized manual changes. EC2 Image Builder standardizes AMI creation and distribution to the DR Region. AWS Config detects noncompliant resources, and EventBridge with Systems Manager Automation can remediate drift automatically instead of waiting for manual correction during a DR event. Replicating application configuration through Secrets Manager keeps runtime settings aligned across Regions. Option B still depends on manual deployment. Option C uses daily scans and custom scripts, which may miss urgent drift and adds operational risk. Option D mostly logs or reviews issues but does not automatically prevent or remediate drift.

To minimize EKS compute costs:

A. Rebuild the application container images to support ARM64 architecture: Graviton instances (ARM-based) require container images built for the ARM64 architecture. This ensures compatibility and allows leveraging Graviton-based compute.

C. Migrate the EKS nodes to the most recent generation of Graviton-based instances: AWS Graviton instances (e.g., c7g, m7g) offer significant price/performance benefits over x86_64 instances. By migrating EKS worker nodes to Graviton, the company can reduce compute costs substantially.

E. Purchase a new EC2 Instance Savings Plan for the newly selected Graviton instance family: Savings Plans provide cost savings compared to On-Demand pricing. After moving to Graviton, purchasing a new Savings Plan tailored for these instance families ensures continued cost savings.This approach aligns with AWS cost optimization best practices—migrating to the latest instance types and purchasing Savings Plans to match the new usage pattern—while ensuring full compatibility with EKS.

In this solution, the company can use Amazon SES to send email messages, which will minimize operational overhead as SES is a fully managed service that handles sending and receiving email messages. The company can store the email template on Amazon SES with parameters for the customer data and use an AWS Lambda function to call the SendTemplatedEmail API operation, passing in the customer data to replace the parameters and the email destination. This solution eliminates the need to set up and manage an SMTP server on EC2 instances, which can be costly and time-consuming.

Customer-managed prefix lists — Sets of IP address ranges that you define and manage. You can share your prefix list with other AWS accounts, enabling those accounts to reference the prefix list in their own resources.https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/managed-prefix-lists.html

a VPC prefix list is created in the transit account with all of the internal IP address ranges, and then shared to all of the other accounts using AWS Resource Access Manager. This allows for central management of the IP address ranges, and eliminates the need for manual updates to security group rules in each account. This solution also allows for compliance checks to be run using AWS Config and for any non-compliant security groups to be automatically remediated.

 The company should create a resource-based IAM policy that includes conditions for specific DynamoDB attributes (fine-grained access control). The company should attach the policy to the DynamoDB table. In the marketing team’s account, the company should create an IAM role that has permissions to access the DynamoDB table in the finance team’s account. This solution will meet the requirements because a resource-based IAM policy is a policy that you attach to an AWS resource (such as a DynamoDB table) to control who can access that resource and what actions they can perform on it. You can use IAM policyconditions to specify fine-grained access control for DynamoDB items and attributes. For example, you can allow or deny access to specific attributes of all items in a table by matching on attribute names1. By creating a resource-based policy that allows access to only specific attributes of the DynamoDB table and attaching it to the table, the company can restrict access to confidential data. By creating an IAM role in the marketing team’s account that has permissions to access the DynamoDB table in the finance team’s account, the company can enable cross-account access.

The other options are not correct because:

Creating an SCP to grant the marketing team’s AWS account access to the specific attributes of the DynamoDB table would not work because SCPs are policies that you can use with AWS Organizations to manage permissions in your organization’s accounts. SCPs do not grant permissions; instead, they specify the maximum permissions that identities in an account can have2. SCPs cannot be used to specify fine-grained access control for DynamoDB items and attributes.

Creating an IAM role in the finance team’s account by using IAM policy conditions for specific DynamoDB attributes and establishing trust with the marketing team’s account would not work because IAM roles are identities that you can create in your account that have specific permissions. You can use an IAM role to delegate access to users, applications, or services that don’t normally have access to your AWS resources3. However, creating an IAM role in the finance team’s account would not restrict access to specific attributes of the DynamoDB table; it would only allow cross-account access. The company would still need a resource-based policy attached to the table to enforce fine-grained access control.

Creating an IAM role in the finance team’s account to access the DynamoDB table and using an IAM permissions boundary to limit the access to the specific attributes would not work because IAM permissions boundaries are policies that you use to delegate permissions management to other users. You can use permissions boundaries to limit the maximum permissions that an identity-based policy can grant to an IAM entity (user or role)4. Permissions boundaries cannot be used to specify fine-grained access control for DynamoDB items and attributes.

Option B is the best answer because separate regional Aurora PostgreSQL clusters keep raw customer PII in the Region where the data is collected, while AWS Glue DataBrew can transform, mask, or redact PII before datasets are used for cross-Region analytics. AWS documentation states that DataBrew can identify and mask PII using techniques such as substitution and shuffling, and AWS Glue sensitive-data transforms can detect, mask, or remove PII entities. Amazon Redshift Serverless then provides a managed analytics layer without requiring the company to operate data warehouse infrastructure. Option D is incorrect because Amazon Macie discovers and helps secure sensitive data in S3; it does not anonymize the data. Option C relies on custom Lambda anonymization and an awkward cross-Region QuickSight database access pattern.

You can segment your network by creating multiple route tables in an AWS Transit Gateway and associate Amazon VPCs and VPNs to them. This will allow you to create isolated networks inside an AWS Transit Gateway similar to virtual routing and forwarding (VRFs) in traditional networks. The AWS Transit Gateway will have a default route table. The use of multiple route tables is optional.

https://aws.amazon.com/es/blogs/industries/how-to-monitor-alert-and-remediate-non-compliant-hipaa-findings-on-aws/

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/mt/implement-aws-resource-tagging-strategy-using-aws-tag-policies-and-service-control-policies-scps/

Aurora Auto Scaling enables your Aurora DB cluster to handle sudden increases in connectivity or workload. When the connectivity or workload decreases, Aurora AutoScaling removes unnecessary Aurora Replicas so that you don ' t pay for unused provisioned DB instances

This explanation is based on AWS documentation and best practices but is paraphrased, not a literal extract.

The scenario describes a central event broker and multiple microservices running in separate AWS accounts that all need to consume the same events. The requirement is to distribute events from a central location to many microservices across accounts in a scalable and loosely coupled way, as part of modernizing to a microservices architecture.

Amazon EventBridge is a serverless event bus service designed for event-driven architectures. It supports centralized event buses, rich content-based filtering with rules, and cross-account event routing. With EventBridge, you can create an event bus in a central account and define rules that match specific event patterns (for example, by microservice or event type). Each rule can have one or more targets, including event buses in other AWS accounts. This supports the pattern of having a central event bus in one account and distributing relevant events to other accounts, where each microservice consumes events either directly from its own event bus or through additional rules and targets in its own account.

In this solution, you create a new EventBridge event bus in the central account and grant the appropriate permissions for cross-account access (option B). You then define EventBridge rules on the central event bus, filtered per microservice or per event category, and configure the rules to send events to the respective event buses or targets in the microservices’ accounts. EventBridge handles the fan-out and delivery of events across accounts in a managed, scalable way, which aligns with the modernization goal and reduces the operational overhead of managing custom routing or polling logic.

Option A uses an SNS topic with SQS queues in each account. This is a valid fan-out pattern and supports cross-account subscriptions, but it is more suited to traditional pub/sub messaging and does not provide the event routing, filtering, and observability features that EventBridge offers for modern event-driven microservices. In scenarios that explicitly mention an event broker and modernization, EventBridge is the recommended service.

Option C is incorrect because Kinesis Data Streams is designed for high-throughput streaming data and requires building and managing consumer applications. The description in the option is also technically inaccurate; Kinesis does not “invoke” microservices directly as event targets in the same way as EventBridge or SNS does. Instead, applications must read from the stream.

Option D uses a single central SQS queue that all microservices read from. SQS provides at-least-once delivery to competing consumers, which means multiple consumers reading from the same queue will typically share messages rather than each getting all messages. This does not satisfy the requirement for multiple microservices to each receive the same events independently. It also reduces decoupling and observability compared to an event bus model.

Therefore, creating an Amazon EventBridge event bus in the central account with rules to distribute events across accounts (option B) best meets the requirements for distributing events from a central broker to multiple microservices across accounts in a modernized architecture.

With AWS PrivateLink, the marketing team can create an endpoint service to share theirinternal application with other accounts securely using private IP addresses. They can grant permission to specific AWS accounts to connect to the service and create interface VPC endpoints in the other accounts to access the application by using private IP addresses. This option does not require any changes to the network of the other business units, and it does not require peering or NATing. This solution is both scalable and secure.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/networking-and-content-delivery/connecting-networks-with-overlapping-ip-ranges/

Extend the system with an application tier that uses AWS Step Functions and AWS Lambda. Configure this tier to use Amazon Textract and Amazon Comprehend to perform optical character recognition (OCR) on the forms when forms are uploaded. Store the output in Amazon S3. Parse this output by extracting the data that is required within the application tier. Submit the data to the target system ' s API. This solution meets the requirements of accurate form extraction, minimal time to market, and minimal long-term operational overhead. Amazon Textract and Amazon Comprehend are fully managed and serverless services that can perform OCR and extract relevant data from the forms, which eliminates the need to develop custom libraries or train and host models. Using AWS Step Functions and Lambda allows for easy automation of the process and the ability to scale as needed.

" A usage plan specifies who can access one or more deployed API stages and methods—and also how much and how fast they can access them. The plan uses API keys to identify API clients and meters access to the associated API stages for each key. It also lets you configure throttling limits and quota limits that are enforced on individual client API keys. " https://docs.aws.amazon.com/apigateway/latest/developerguide/api-gateway-api-usage-plans.html

A rate-based rule tracks the rate of requests for each originating IP address, and triggers the rule action on IPs with rates that go over a limit. You set the limit as the number of requests per 5-minute time span...... The following caveats apply to AWS WAF rate-based rules: The minimum rate that you can set is 100. AWS WAF checks the rate of requests every 30 seconds, and counts requests for the prior five minutes each time. Because of this, it ' s possible for an IP address to send requests at too high a rate for 30 seconds before AWS WAF detects and blocks it. AWS WAF can block up to 10,000 IP addresses. If more than 10,000 IP addresses send high rates of requests at the same time, AWS WAF will only block 10,000 of them. " https://docs.aws.amazon.com/waf/latest/developerguide/waf-rule-statement-type-rate-based.html

Gateway VPC Endpoint for S3:

Create a gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 in your VPC. This allows instances in your VPC to communicate with Amazon S3 without going through the internet, reducing data transfer costs and improving security.

Add Spot Instances to ECS Cluster:

Add another ECS capacity provider that uses an Auto Scaling group of Spot Instances. Configure this new capacity provider to share the load with the existing On-Demand Instances by setting an appropriate weight in the capacity provider strategy. Spot Instances offer significant cost savings compared to On-Demand Instances.

Configure Capacity Provider Strategy:

Adjust the ECS service ' s capacity provider strategy to utilize both On-Demand and Spot Instances effectively. This ensures a balanced distribution of tasks across both instance types, optimizing cost while maintaining availability.

By implementing a gateway VPC endpoint for S3 and incorporating Spot Instances into the ECS cluster, the company can significantly reduce operational costs without compromising on the availability or performance of the platform.

References

AWS Cost Optimization Blog on VPC Endpoints

AWS ECS Documentation on Capacity Providers

Storing the database credentials in AWS Secrets Manager as a secret that is associated with an AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) customer managed key will enable encrypting and managing the credentials securely1. AWS Secrets Manager helps you to securely encrypt, store, and retrieve credentials for your databases and other services2. Attaching a role to each Lambda function to provide access to the secret will enable retrieving the credentials programmatically1. Restricting access to the secret and the customer managed key so that only members of the IT security team’s IAM user group can access them will enable meeting the security requirements1.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/custom-tags.htmlhttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/configurecostallocreport.html

Dis the right choice:EFS with Max I/O modeis designed formassively parallel workloadslike big data. It supports high throughput and concurrent access from many EC2 nodes across AZs.

A(Storage Gateway) is not optimized for high-performance, low-latency compute clusters.

Bis limited in performance (latency optimized for single-threaded workloads).

C(EBS) cannot be shared across AZs and is not POSIX-compatible for concurrent multi-node access.

D is correct because this solution modernizes the application into aserverless architectureusing API Gateway and Lambda for scalable microservices.Aurora Serverless v2supports SQL workloads and auto-scales based on demand.AWS SCTallows migration of SQL Server stored procedures to Aurora-compatible formats. This setup ensures cost efficiency, scalability, and minimal manual intervention.

A rehosts but doesn’t refactor into microservices.

B uses MySQL, which might not support the SQL Server-specific stored procedures fully.

C adds unnecessary complexity and loses relational database functionality by using DAX.

The best answer is C because the workload has millions of small 64 KB uploads every hour. Sending every S3 object event through EventBridge to an ECS task creates high event and invocation overhead. Amazon Data Firehose can buffer many incoming records and deliver larger compressed objects to S3, which reduces the small-object problem and improves cost efficiency. The ECS processing takes an average of 15 minutes, so replacing it with Lambda is risky because Lambda has a maximum runtime of 900 seconds, exactly 15 minutes. For five-year retention, S3 Lifecycle rules can transition data to S3 Glacier Deep Archive for long-term low-cost archival. DynamoDB TTL is appropriate for automatically expiring 15-day results without custom cleanup jobs. (AWS Documentation)

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The company should use AWS Amplify to create a static website for uploads of media files. The company should use Amplify Hosting to serve the website through Amazon CloudFront. The company should use Amazon S3 to store the uploaded media files. The company should use Amazon Cognito to authenticate users. This solution will meet the requirements with the least operational overhead because AWS Amplify is a complete solution that lets frontend web and mobile developers easily build, ship, and host full-stack applications on AWS, with the flexibility to leverage the breadth of AWS services as use cases evolve. No cloud expertise needed1. By using AWS Amplify, the company can refactor the application to a serverless architecture that reduces operational complexity and costs. AWS Amplify offers the following features and benefits:

Amplify Studio: A visual interface that enables you to build and deploy a full-stack app quickly, including frontend UI and backend.

Amplify CLI: A local toolchain that enables you to configure and manage an app backend with just a few commands.

Amplify Libraries: Open-source client libraries that enable you to build cloud-powered mobile and web apps.

Amplify UI Components: Open-source design system with cloud-connected components for building feature-rich apps fast.

Amplify Hosting: Fully managed CI/CD and hosting for fast, secure, and reliable static and server-side rendered apps.

By using AWS Amplify to create a static website for uploads of media files, the company can leverage Amplify Studio to visually build a pixel-perfect UI and connect it to a cloudbackend in clicks. By using Amplify Hosting to serve the website through Amazon CloudFront, the company can easily deploy its web app or website to the fast, secure, and reliable AWS content delivery network (CDN), with hundreds of points of presence globally. By using Amazon S3 to store the uploaded media files, the company can benefit from a highly scalable, durable, and cost-effective object storage service that can handle any amount of data2. By using Amazon Cognito to authenticate users, the company can add user sign-up, sign-in, and access control to its web app with a fully managed service that scales to support millions of users3.

The other options are not correct because:

Using AWS Application Migration Service to migrate the application server to Amazon EC2 instances would not refactor the application or accelerate development. AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN) is a service that enables you to migrate physical servers, virtual machines (VMs), or cloud servers from any source infrastructure to AWS without requiring agents or specialized tools. However, this would not address the challenges of overutilization and data uploads failures. It would also not reduce operational overhead or costs compared to a serverless architecture.

Creating a static website for uploads of media files and using AWS AppSync to create an API would not be as simple or fast as using AWS Amplify. AWS AppSync is a service that enables you to create flexible APIs for securely accessing, manipulating, and combining data from one or more data sources. However, this would require more configuration and management than using Amplify Studio and Amplify Hosting. It would also not provide authentication features like Amazon Cognito.

Setting up AWS IAM Identity Center (AWS Single Sign-On) to give users the ability to sign in to the application would not be as suitable as using Amazon Cognito. AWS Single Sign-On (AWS SSO) is a service that enables you to centrally manage SSO access and user permissions across multiple AWS accounts and business applications. However, this service is designed for enterprise customers who need to manage access for employees or partners across multiple resources. It is not intended for authenticating end users of web or mobile apps.

The correct answer is A, D, and F. AWS AppFabric is designed to ingest and normalize audit logs from compatible SaaS applications into the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework, which makes logs from different SaaS providers easier to analyze consistently. Amazon Security Lake centralizes security data from AWS sources and custom sources, including AppFabric. Therefore, SaaS audit logs, CloudTrail events, Amazon S3 data events, Amazon EKS audit logs, and VPC Flow Logs can be centralized in Security Lake. OpenSearch Ingestion can then move Security Lake data into Amazon OpenSearch Service, where dashboards can visualize user activity, IP addresses, email addresses, and access frequencies. Options B and C are weaker because they create custom log pipelines and dashboards instead of using managed security data normalization. Option E uses Redshift and QuickSight, but OpenSearch is the better fit for security investigation dashboards.

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