AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C02) — Question 327

A company is migrating a legacy application from an on-premises data center to AWS. The application consists of a single application server and a Microsoft SQL Server database server. Each server is deployed on a VMware VM that consumes 500 TB of data across multiple attached volumes.

The company has established a 10 Gbps AWS Direct Connect connection from the closest AWS Region to its on-premises data center. The Direct Connect connection is not currently in use by other services.

Which combination of steps should a solutions architect take to migrate the application with the LEAST amount of downtime? (Choose two.)

Answer options

• A. Use an AWS Server Migration Service (AWS SMS) replication job to migrate the database server VM to AWS.
• B. Use VM Import/Export to import the application server VM.
• C. Export the VM images to an AWS Snowball Edge Storage Optimized device.
• D. Use an AWS Server Migration Service (AWS SMS) replication job to migrate the application server VM to AWS.
• E. Use an AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) replication instance to migrate the database to an Amazon RDS DB instance.

Correct answer: D, E

Explanation

Using AWS Server Migration Service (AWS SMS) for the application server VM allows incremental, continuous replication over the 10 Gbps Direct Connect link, which minimizes final cutover downtime. For the database, employing AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) to replicate to an Amazon RDS DB instance ensures a live, near-zero downtime database migration. Replicating the database VM via AWS SMS or using VM Import/Export or Snowball Edge devices would lead to significantly higher downtime and operational overhead.