AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 706

A financial services company wants to shut down two data centers and migrate more than 100 TB of data to AWS. The data has an intricate directory structure with millions of small files stored in deep hierarchies of subfolders. Most of the data is unstructured, and the company’s file storage consists of SMB-based storage types from multiple vendors. The company does not want to change its applications to access the data after migration.

What should a solutions architect do to meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?

Answer options

• A. Use AWS Direct Connect to migrate the data to Amazon S3.
• B. Use AWS DataSync to migrate the data to Amazon FSx for Lustre.
• C. Use AWS DataSync to migrate the data to Amazon FSx for Windows File Server.
• D. Use AWS Direct Connect to migrate the data on-premises file storage to an AWS Storage Gateway volume gateway.

Correct answer: C

Explanation

AWS DataSync is optimized for migrating millions of small files and deep directory structures efficiently over the network. Since the source storage uses the SMB protocol and the applications require unchanged file-level access, Amazon FSx for Windows File Server is the ideal target because it natively supports SMB. Other options like Amazon S3 or Volume Gateway would require application modifications or do not natively support the existing SMB file structure with minimal overhead.