SAA-C03 Exam Dumps - Amazon Web Services AWS Certified Associate Questions and Answers

AWS Global Accelerator improves the performance and availability of applications by directing user traffic through the AWS global network of edge locations using anycast IP addresses. It reduces latency and jitter for global users accessing applications in a single Region.

Why this works:

Global Accelerator routes user requests to the nearest AWS edge location using AWS’s high-performance backbone network.

It then forwards traffic to the optimal endpoint — in this case, the public API hosted on EC2.

This is much more cost-effective and requires less operational complexity than deploying and maintaining multiple API Gateway endpoints across regions (Option B), or setting up Direct Connect links for every international location (Option A).

Option C requires no application change and is designed specifically for latency improvement and high availability.

???? References:

AWS Global Accelerator Documentation

Use Cases for Global Accelerator

Performance Improvements for Global Users

The company’s requirements are:

Store gigabytes of rarely accessed files daily.

Files must be available within minutes during the first year.

Retain files for 7 years cost-effectively.

The S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval storage class provides low-cost, long-term storage for data accessed occasionally, with millisecond retrieval time. This fits the requirement for availability within minutes during the first year. After one year, transitioning files to S3 Glacier Deep Archive (the lowest cost S3 storage class) with longer retrieval times is cost-effective for data retention over 7 years.

Option B uses S3 Standard and Glacier Flexible Retrieval, which is higher cost during the first year and slower retrieval times. Option C is less cost-efficient because EBS volumes are expensive for rarely accessed data and snapshots incur additional costs. Option D uses EFS, which is designed for low-latency file storage but is more expensive than S3 Glacier classes for long-term archival.

The question focuses on minimizing costs while serving static content to users in the US and Europe.

Option Auses a single S3 bucket and configures CloudFront to limit edge locations, reducing costs by using fewer edge locations while still improving performance.

Option Bmaximizes edge locations, which increases costs unnecessarily.

Options C and Dinvolve storing data in multiple regions, which increases storage and operational costs.Thus, Option A is the most cost-effective solution.

Why Option B is Correct:

HTTP Proxy Integration: Passes XML requests directly to the application, which already supports XML.

JSON Conversion: An AWS Lambda function converts JSON requests to XML and calls the application.

API Gateway: Acts as a front end to handle JSON requests and integrates seamlessly with Lambda for the transformation process.

Why Other Options Are Not Ideal:

Option A: Suggests using API Gateway mappings to convert JSON to XML. API Gateway mapping templates are limited in functionality and are not ideal for complex transformations.

Option C and D: Use HTTP custom integration unnecessarily, which adds complexity without additional benefits.

AWS References:

Amazon API Gateway Integration:AWS Documentation - API Gateway Integration

AWS Lambda:AWS Documentation - Lambda

The most cost-effective solution for serving video content with different bitrates is to store multiple versions of each video inAmazon S3. S3 provides scalable and cost-effective storage for largemedia files. Serving the videos from a single Amazon EC2 instance ensures low-latency delivery, and S3 storage helps minimize costs.

Option A (ElastiCache): Caching large video files in memory would be prohibitively expensive and unnecessary.

Option B (Auto Scaling group): Using Auto Scaling groups to serve video is less cost-effective compared to leveraging S3 for static storage.

Option D (Kinesis Video Streams): Kinesis Video Streams is designed for real-time video streaming and is not suitable for storing and serving pre-recorded videos.

AWS References:

Amazon S3 for Media Storage

Pre-Signed URLs: Allow temporary access to S3 buckets, making it easy to manage time-limited upload permissions without complex operational overhead.

Lambda for Automation: Automatically generates and provides pre-signed URLs when users authenticate, minimizing manual steps and code complexity.

Least Operational Overhead: Requires no custom authentication service or deep integration with STS or Cognito.

Amazon S3 Pre-Signed URLs Documentation

For predictable workloads requiring a relational database, Amazon RDS for MySQL offers a managed, cost-effective solution. Storing product images in Amazon S3 is highly durable and cost-efficient, especially for static assets like images. This combination leverages managed services to reduce operational overhead and costs.

The optimal way to improve reliability and scalability of SFTP on AWS is to use AWS Transfer Family (for SFTP). It provides a fully managed SFTP server integrated with Amazon S3.

No EC2 instances or infrastructure management is required.

AWS Transfer Family supports custom DNS domains (e.g., sftp.example.com) and allows integration with existing authentication mechanisms like LDAP, AD, or custom identity providers.

Files are uploaded directly to S3, eliminating the need for cron jobs to move data from EC2 to S3.

Built-in high availability and scalability removes the burden of managing infrastructure.

Other options:

A and D still require manual scaling, server maintenance, and cron jobs.

C (Storage Gateway) is used for hybrid file access, not for replacing an SFTP server.

???? Reference:

AWS Transfer Family for SFTP

Amazon RDSBlue/Green Deploymentsis the ideal solution for upgrading the database version with minimal operational overhead and no data loss. Blue/Green Deployments allows you to create a separate, fully managed "green" environment with the upgraded database version. You can test the new version in the green environment while the "blue" environment continuesserving production traffic. Once testing is complete, you can seamlessly switch traffic to the green environment without downtime.

This solution provides:

Fast, non-disruptive upgrade: Traffic is only switched to the new environment after testing, ensuring zero data loss.

Minimal operational overhead: AWS handles the infrastructure management, reducing manual intervention.

Option A (Manual snapshot): This requires manual intervention and involves more operational overhead.

Option B (Native backup/restore): This approach is more labor-intensive and slower than Blue/Green Deployments.

Option C (DMS): AWS DMS adds unnecessary complexity for a simple version upgrade when Blue/Green Deployments can handle the task more efficiently.

AWS References:

Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments

According to AWS best practices, each tier’s security group must restrict inbound traffic to only the upstream trusted source. For the web tier, the Application Load Balancer must be the only entity allowed to send traffic. AWS documentation specifies: “Restrict the security groups associated with your targets to accept traffic only from the load balancer.” This confirms that the web tier security group should allow inbound HTTPS from the ALB security group (A).

For communication between the web and application tiers, AWS states: “You can specify a security group as the source or destination in a rule” and “Create rules only for the protocols and ports required by your application.” Therefore, the application tier security group must allow inbound HTTPS traffic from the web tier security group (E).

For the database tier, AWS guidance says: “Allow only the necessary ports for database communication.” Microsoft SQL Server listens on port 1433 by default, so the database tier security group must allow inbound SQL Server traffic from the application tier security group (C).

Outbound rules (options B, D, and F) are unnecessary because AWS specifies that “Security groups are stateful. Return traffic is automatically allowed.” This means once inbound rules are defined, the return path is automatically permitted without extra outbound configurations.

This combination (A, C, E) applies the principle of least privilege, ensures end-to-end secure communication across tiers, and follows AWS recommendations for ALB-to-target security group setups.

SSE-KMS (Server-side encryption with AWS Key Management Service) not only encrypts data at rest but also integrates with AWS CloudTrail to provide detailed logs of key usage — meeting the audit requirement.

“SSE-KMS provides the ability to audit key usage to see who used the key and when, via AWS CloudTrail.”

— Amazon S3 Encryption Documentation

Benefits:

Encryption with customer-managed or AWS-managed KMS keys

Audit trails of key usage events

Fine-grained access control

Incorrect Options:

A: SSE-S3 does not support auditing of key usage.

C: SSE-C does not integrate with CloudTrail or KMS.

D: Self-managed keys require external key infrastructure and custom audit logging.

AWS Shield Advanced is designed to provide enhanced protection against DDoS attacks with proactive engagement and response capabilities, making it the best solution for this scenario.

AWS Shield Advanced: This service provides advanced protection against DDoS attacks. It includes detailed attack diagnostics, 24/7 access to the AWS DDoS Response Team (DRT), and financial protection against DDoS-related scaling charges. Shield Advanced also integrates with Route 53 and the Application Load Balancer (ALB) to ensure comprehensive protection for your web applications.

Route 53 and ALB Protection: By adding your Route 53 hosted zones and ALB resources to AWS Shield Advanced, you ensure that these components are covered under the enhanced protection plan. Shield Advanced actively monitors traffic and provides real-time attack mitigation, minimizing the impact of DDoS attacks on your application.

Why Not Other Options?:

Option A (AWS Config): AWS Config is a configuration management service and does not provide DDoS protection or detection capabilities.

Option B (AWS WAF): While AWS WAF can help mitigate some types of attacks, it does not provide the comprehensive DDoS protection and proactive engagement offered by Shield Advanced.

Option C (GuardDuty): GuardDuty is a threat detection service that identifies potentially malicious activity within your AWS environment, but it is not specifically designed to provide DDoS protection.

AWS References:

AWS Shield Advanced- Overview of AWS Shield Advanced and its DDoS protection capabilities.

Integrating AWS Shield Advanced with Route 53 and ALB- Detailed guidance on how to protect Route 53 and ALB with AWS Shield Advanced.

Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes are designed to deliver sub-millisecond latency and up to 256,000 IOPS per volume, with durability and high availability. This makes io2 Block Express the recommended choice for workloads requiring very high and predictable IOPS, such as enterprise databases and high-transaction-rate applications.

Reference Extract:

"EBS io2 Block Express volumes deliver up to 256,000 IOPS and sub-millisecond latency, supporting high-performance, high-durability workloads."

Source: AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Official Study Guide, EBS Performance section.

TooManyRequestsException errors occur when Lambda exceeds concurrency limits. The recommended pattern is to use Amazon SQS with Lambda to decouple and buffer traffic, ensuring that bursts of requests are queued and processed smoothly. Enabling provisioned concurrency for Lambda ensures that functions are pre-initialized and ready to handle spikes in load with low latency. Step Functions (B) is designed for workflow orchestration, not high-throughput request buffering. SNS with Lambda (C) does not provide buffering and may overwhelm Lambda during bursts. Reserved concurrency (D) limits function scaling instead of improving resilience. Therefore, option A provides a scalable and resilient solution, minimizing errors during traffic surges.