AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C02) — Question 330

An online magazine will launch its latest edition this month. This edition will be the first to be distributed globally. The magazine's dynamic website currently uses an Application Load Balancer in front of the web tier, a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances for web and application servers, and Amazon Aurora MySQL. Portions of the website include static content and almost all traffic is read-only.

The magazine is expecting a significant spike in internet traffic when the new edition is launched. Optimal performance is a top priority for the week following the launch.

Which combination of steps should a solutions architect take to reduce system response times for a global audience? (Choose two.)

Answer options

• A. Use logical cross-Region replication to replicate the Aurora MySQL database to a secondary Region. Replace the web servers with Amazon S3. Deploy S3 buckets in cross-Region replication mode.
• B. Ensure the web and application tiers are each in Auto Scaling groups. Introduce an AWS Direct Connect connection. Deploy the web and application tiers in Regions across the world.
• C. Migrate the database from Amazon Aurora to Amazon RDS for MySQL. Ensure all three of the application tiers – web, application, and database – are in private subnets.
• D. Use an Aurora global database for physical cross-Region replication. Use Amazon S3 with cross-Region replication for static content and resources. Deploy the web and application tiers in Regions across the world.
• E. Introduce Amazon Route 53 with latency-based routing and Amazon CloudFront distributions. Ensure the web and application tiers are each in Auto Scaling groups.

Correct answer: D, E

Explanation

To minimize latency for a global audience, deploying the web and application tiers globally with Amazon Route 53 latency-based routing and Amazon CloudFront is ideal, combined with Auto Scaling to handle the traffic spike (Option E). Additionally, using an Aurora global database provides low-latency physical replication across Regions, while Amazon S3 with cross-Region replication handles static content efficiently (Option D). Other options are incorrect because AWS Direct Connect is for on-premises hybrid setups, migrating to RDS for MySQL degrades performance compared to Aurora, and replacing the dynamic web servers entirely with S3 is not feasible for a dynamic site.