AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C02) — Question 353

A company is preparing to migrate its on-premises application to AWS. The application consists of application servers and a Microsoft SQL Server database The database cannot be migrated to a different engine because SQL Server features are used in the application's NET code. The company wants to attain the greatest availability possible while minimizing operational and management overhead.
What should a solutions architect do to accomplish this?

Answer options

• A. Install SQL Server on Amazon EC2 in a Multi-AZ deployment.
• B. Migrate the data to Amazon RDS for SQL Server in a Multi-AZ deployment.
• C. Deploy the database on Amazon RDS for SQL Server with Multi-AZ Replicas.
• D. Migrate the data to Amazon RDS for SQL Server in a cross-Region Multi-AZ deployment.

Correct answer: B

Explanation

Migrating to Amazon RDS for SQL Server in a Multi-AZ deployment provides high availability and automatic failover with minimal operational overhead, as AWS handles infrastructure management, patching, and backups. In contrast, deploying SQL Server on Amazon EC2 (Option A) increases administrative overhead by requiring manual setup of high availability, backups, and OS maintenance. Option B is the standard, fully managed solution that satisfies all constraints, whereas cross-Region or alternative replica setups (Options C and D) introduce unnecessary architectural complexity and higher overhead.