Practice Free SAA-C03 Exam Online Questions
A company is migrating a large amount of data from on-premises storage to AWS. Windows, Mac, and Linux based Amazon EC2 instances in the same AWS Region will access the data by using SMB and NFS storage protocols. The company will access a portion of the data routinely. The company will access the remaining data infrequently.
The company needs to design a solution to host the data.
Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?
- A . Create an Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) volume that uses EFS Intelligent-Tiering. Use AWS DataSync to migrate the data to the EFS volume.
- B . Create an Amazon FSx for ONTAP instance. Create an FSx for ONTAP file system with a root volume that uses the auto tiering policy. Migrate the data to the FSx for ONTAP volume.
- C . Create an Amazon S3 bucket that uses S3 Intelligent-Tiering. Migrate the data to the S3 bucket by using an AWS Storage Gateway Amazon S3 File Gateway.
- D . Create an Amazon FSx for OpenZFS file system. Migrate the data to the new volume.
B
Explanation:
Amazon FSx for ONTAP supports both NFS and SMB protocols and includes automated tiering between SSD and capacity pool storage, optimizing cost and performance. It is ideal for mixed operating systems and varied access patterns with minimal administrative overhead.
Reference: AWS Documentation C Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP and Auto Tiering for Multi-Protocol Access
A company wants to protect resources that the company hosts on AWS, including Application Load Balancers and Amazon CloudFront distributions.
The company wants an AWS service that can provide near real-time visibility into attacks on the company’s resources. The service must also have a dedicated AWS team to assist with DDoS attacks.
Which AWS service will meet these requirements?
- A . AWS WAF
- B . AWS Shield Standard
- C . Amazon Macie
- D . AWS Shield Advanced
D
Explanation:
AWS Shield Advanced provides:
Advanced DDoS detection and mitigation
24/7 access to the AWS DDoS Response Team (DRT)
Real-time metrics and alerts via CloudWatch
Integrated with CloudFront, ALB, Route 53, and Global Accelerator
“Shield Advanced provides enhanced detection and mitigation for more sophisticated DDoS attacks and gives you access to the AWS DDoS Response Team (DRT).”
― AWS Shield Advanced Overview Incorrect Options:
A (AWS WAF): For application-layer filtering only.
B (Shield Standard): Basic protection, no DRT or attack visibility.
C (Macie): Used for discovering sensitive data in S3, unrelated to DDoS.
Reference: AWS Shield Advanced
Shield vs Shield Advanced
A healthcare company uses an Amazon EMR cluster to process patient data. The data must be encrypted in transit and at rest. Local volumes in the cluster also need to be encrypted.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A . Create Amazon EBS volumes. Enable encryption. Attach the volumes to the existing EMR cluster.
- B . Create an EMR security configuration that encrypts the data and the volumes as required.
- C . Create an EC2 instance profile for the EMR instances. Configure the instance profile to enforce encryption.
- D . Create a runtime role that has a trust policy for the EMR cluster.
B
Explanation:
Amazon EMR allows the creation of security configurations to specify settings for encrypting data at rest, data in transit, or both. These configurations can be applied to clusters to ensure that data stored in Amazon S3, local disks, and data moving between nodes is encrypted.
By creating and applying an EMR security configuration, the company can ensure that all data processing complies with encryption requirements for sensitive patient data.
A company runs a critical Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance in a single Availability Zone. The company must improve the availability of the DB instance.
Which solution will meet this requirement?
- A . Configure the DB instance to use a multi-Region DB instance deployment.
- B . Create an Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) queue in the AWS Region where the company hosts the DB instance to manage writes to the DB instance.
- C . Configure the DB instance to use a Multi-AZ DB instance deployment.
- D . Create an Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) queue in a different AWS Region than the Region where the company hosts the DB instance to manage writes to the DB instance.
C
Explanation:
To improve availability and fault tolerance of an Amazon RDS instance, the recommended approach is to configure a Multi-AZ deployment.
Multi-AZ deployments for RDS automatically replicate data to a standby instance in a different Availability Zone (AZ).
If a failure occurs in the primary AZ (due to hardware, network, or power), RDS will automatically failover to the standby instance with minimal downtime, without administrative intervention.
This is an AWS-managed feature and does not require application modification.
It does not provide scalability or load balancing; it’s designed for high availability and resiliency.
Options A, B, and D are incorrect:
A refers to cross-Region, which is used for disaster recovery, not high availability.
B and D with SQS do not address high availability directly for the RDS instance; queues help decouple systems but do not make a database more resilient.
Reference: Amazon RDS Multi-AZ Deployments
A company collects data from sensors. The company needs a cloud-based solution to store and transform the sensor data to make critical decisions. The solution must store the data for up to 2 days. After 2 days, the solution must delete the data. The company needs to use the transformeddata in an automated workflow that has manual approval steps.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A . Load the data into an Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) queue that has a retention
period of 2 days. Use an Amazon EventBridge pipe to retrieve data from the queue, transform the data, and pass the data to an AWS Step Functions workflow. - B . Load the data into AWS DataSync. Delete the DataSync task after 2 days. Invoke an AWS Lambda function to retrieve the data, transform the data, and invoke a second Lambda function that performs the remaining workflow steps.
- C . Load the data into an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic. Use an Amazon EventBridge pipe to retrieve the data from the topic, transform the data, and send the data to Amazon EC2 instances to perform the remaining workflow steps.
- D . Load the data into an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic. Use an Amazon EventBridge pipe to retrieve the data from the topic and transform the data into an appropriate format for an Amazon SQS queue. Use an AWS Lambda function to poll the queue to perform the remaining workflow steps.
A
Explanation:
Amazon SQS with a 2-day retention ensures the data lives just as long as needed. EventBridge Pipes allow direct integration between event producers and consumers, with optional filtering and transformation. AWS Step Functions supports manual approval steps, which fits the workflow requirement perfectly.
Reference: AWS Documentation C Amazon EventBridge Pipes, AWS Step Functions
A company has deployed a multi-tier web application to support a website. The architecture includes an Application Load Balancer (ALB) in public subnets, two Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) tasks in the public subnets, and a PostgreSQL cluster that runs on Amazon EC2 instances in private subnets.
The EC2 instances that host the PostgreSQL database run shell scripts that need to access an external API to retrieve product information. A solutions architect must design a solution to allow the EC2 instances to securely communicate with the external API without increasing operational overhead.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A . Assign public IP addresses to the EC2 instances in the private subnets. Configure security groups to allow outbound internet access.
- B . Configure a NAT gateway in the public subnets. Update the route table for the private subnets to route traffic to the NAT gateway.
- C . Configure a VPC peering connection between the private subnets and a public subnet that has access to the external API.
- D . Deploy an interface VPC endpoint to securely connect to the external API.
B
Explanation:
EC2 instances in private subnets cannot access the internet unless there is a NAT gateway or a NAT instance configured.
“To enable instances in a private subnet to connect to the internet or other AWS services, you can use a NAT gateway or NAT instance.”
― NAT Gateways C Amazon VPC In this use case:
EC2 instances are in private subnets
They need to call external APIs (internet access)
The most operationally efficient and secure method is to place a NAT Gateway in a public subnet and update the route table for private subnets to route internet-bound traffic through it.
Incorrect Options:
A: Private subnets don’t support public IPs.
C: VPC peering doesn’t help reach the public internet.
D: Interface endpoints are for private connectivity to AWS services, not external APIs.
Reference: NAT Gateway Documentation VPC Best Practices
A company is creating a web application that will store a large number of images in Amazon S3. The images will be accessed by users over variable periods of time.
The company wants to:
Retain all the images.
Incur no cost for retrieval.
Have minimal management overhead.
Have the images available with no impact on retrieval time.
Which solution meets these requirements?
- A . Implement S3 Intelligent-Tiering.
- B . Implement S3 storage class analysis.
- C . Implement an S3 Lifecycle policy to move data to S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA).
- D . Implement an S3 Lifecycle policy to move data to S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access (S3 One Zone-IA).
A
Explanation:
S3 Intelligent-Tiering is designed for data with unknown or changing access patterns. It automatically moves objects between frequent and infrequent access tiers as needed, with no retrieval fees for accessing data in any tier, and no performance impact. Minimal management overhead is required because AWS manages all transitions automatically. This class is cost-optimized and meets all requirements listed.
AWS Documentation Extract:
"S3 Intelligent-Tiering is the only storage class that automatically moves data between frequent and infrequent access tiers when access patterns change, with no retrieval charges and no impact on performance. It is designed to optimize costs automatically when data access patterns are unpredictable."
(Source: Amazon S3 documentation, Intelligent-Tiering storage class)
Other options:
B: Storage class analysis only provides recommendations, not actual storage tiering.
C & D: S3 Standard-IA and S3 One Zone-IA both have retrieval fees and may impact retrieval time and data durability.
Reference: AWS Certified Solutions Architect C Official Study Guide, S3 Storage Classes Section.
A company is developing a platform to process large volumes of data for complex analytics and machine learning (ML) tasks. The platform must handle compute-intensive workloads. The workloads currently require 20 to 30 minutes for each data processing step.
The company wants a solution to accelerate data processing.
Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?
- A . Deploy three Amazon EC2 instances. Distribute the EC2 instances across three Availability Zones.
Use traditional batch processing techniques for data processing. - B . Create an Amazon EMR cluster. Use managed scaling. Install Apache Spark to assist with data processing.
- C . Create an AWS Lambda function for each data processing step. Deploy an Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) queue to relay data between Lambda functions.
- D . Create a series of AWS Lambda functions to process the data. Use AWS Step Functions to orchestrate the Lambda functions into data processing steps.
B
Explanation:
Amazon EMR provides a managed big data framework that supports Apache Spark, which is ideal for distributed and compute-intensive data transformations. Managed scaling dynamically adjusts cluster resources, ensuring high performance with minimal management.
From AWS Documentation:
“Amazon EMR provides a managed environment for big data frameworks such as Apache Spark and Hadoop. With managed scaling, EMR automatically resizes clusters to meet workload demands.”
(Source: Amazon EMR Developer Guide)
Why B is correct:
Provides distributed parallel processing for large datasets.
Reduces operational overhead with managed scaling and auto-termination.
Integrates easily with S3, Glue, and ML pipelines.
Optimized for heavy ETL and analytics workloads.
Why others are incorrect:
A: Manual scaling and limited processing capacity.
C & D: Lambda has execution time and memory limits unsuitable for 30-minute compute-intensive tasks.
Reference: Amazon EMR Developer Guide C “Using Managed Scaling”
AWS Well-Architected Framework C Performance Efficiency Pillar
A company is building a new web application on AWS. The application needs to consume files from a legacy on-premises application that runs a batch process and outputs approximately 1 GB of data every night to an NFS file mount.
A solutions architect needs to design a storage solution that requires minimal changes to the legacy application and keeps costs low.
Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?
- A . Deploy an Outpost in AWS Outposts to the on-premises location where the legacy application is stored. Configure the legacy application and the web application to store and retrieve the files in Amazon S3 on the Outpost.
- B . Deploy an AWS Storage Gateway Volume Gateway on premises. Point the legacy application to the Volume Gateway. Configure the web application to use the Amazon S3 bucket that the Volume Gateway uses.
- C . Deploy an Amazon S3 interface endpoint on AWS. Reconfigure the legacy application to store the files directly on an Amazon S3 endpoint. Configure the web application to retrieve the files from Amazon S3.
- D . Deploy an Amazon S3 File Gateway on premises. Point the legacy application to the File Gateway.
Configure the web application to retrieve the files from the S3 bucket that the File Gateway uses.
D
Explanation:
Amazon S3 File Gateway provides a local NFS mount point, which can be used with minimal changes by the legacy application. Files are transparently uploaded to Amazon S3, allowing the web application to access them directly from S3. This is the most cost-effective and operationally simple way to bridge legacy on-premises NFS output with S3, requiring no changes to the batch process.
AWS Documentation Extract:
“With S3 File Gateway, you can provide applications a local file interface to Amazon S3. S3 File Gateway presents a file-based interface (NFS or SMB), allowing you to use S3 as your scalable, durable storage while making files available to legacy applications.”
(Source: AWS Storage Gateway documentation)
A: Outposts is far more costly and complex than needed.
B: Volume Gateway presents iSCSI block storage, not NFS.
C: Requires re-coding the legacy app to use S3 APIs, not NFS.
Reference: AWS Certified Solutions Architect C Official Study Guide, Hybrid Storage Solutions.
A company is building a new web application on AWS. The application needs to consume files from a legacy on-premises application that runs a batch process and outputs approximately 1 GB of data every night to an NFS file mount.
A solutions architect needs to design a storage solution that requires minimal changes to the legacy application and keeps costs low.
Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?
- A . Deploy an Outpost in AWS Outposts to the on-premises location where the legacy application is stored. Configure the legacy application and the web application to store and retrieve the files in Amazon S3 on the Outpost.
- B . Deploy an AWS Storage Gateway Volume Gateway on premises. Point the legacy application to the Volume Gateway. Configure the web application to use the Amazon S3 bucket that the Volume Gateway uses.
- C . Deploy an Amazon S3 interface endpoint on AWS. Reconfigure the legacy application to store the files directly on an Amazon S3 endpoint. Configure the web application to retrieve the files from Amazon S3.
- D . Deploy an Amazon S3 File Gateway on premises. Point the legacy application to the File Gateway.
Configure the web application to retrieve the files from the S3 bucket that the File Gateway uses.
D
Explanation:
Amazon S3 File Gateway provides a local NFS mount point, which can be used with minimal changes by the legacy application. Files are transparently uploaded to Amazon S3, allowing the web application to access them directly from S3. This is the most cost-effective and operationally simple way to bridge legacy on-premises NFS output with S3, requiring no changes to the batch process.
AWS Documentation Extract:
“With S3 File Gateway, you can provide applications a local file interface to Amazon S3. S3 File Gateway presents a file-based interface (NFS or SMB), allowing you to use S3 as your scalable, durable storage while making files available to legacy applications.”
(Source: AWS Storage Gateway documentation)
A: Outposts is far more costly and complex than needed.
B: Volume Gateway presents iSCSI block storage, not NFS.
C: Requires re-coding the legacy app to use S3 APIs, not NFS.
Reference: AWS Certified Solutions Architect C Official Study Guide, Hybrid Storage Solutions.