Sample SAA-C03 Design High-Performing Architectures questions with explanations
Use these examples to check how the topics are tested. Read the explanation for every option you were unsure about, then start a scored practice set above.
Question 1
Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures
A real-time analytics dashboard queries an Amazon Redshift cluster. Users report that the dashboard is slow when multiple complex queries run concurrently. The Redshift cluster is a single-node configuration. What is the MOST effective way to improve concurrent query performance?
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✓ Convert the single-node cluster to a multi-node cluster (leader and compute nodes).
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○ Increase the node type of the single-node cluster to a larger instance.
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○ Create materialized views for the slow queries.
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○ Use Redshift Spectrum to query data directly in S3.
Answer:
A. Convert the single-node cluster to a multi-node cluster (leader and compute nodes).
Amazon Redshift is a massively parallel processing (MPP) data warehouse. Moving from a single-node configuration to a multi-node cluster distributes data and query processing across multiple compute nodes, allowing concurrent queries to be executed in parallel. This is the primary scaling mechanism for Redshift to handle concurrent workloads. Scaling up a single node (B) has limits. Materialized views (C) help specific queries but not overall concurrency. Redshift Spectrum (D) is for querying exabyte-scale data in S3, not for optimizing concurrency on the main cluster.
Question 2
Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures
An application stores sensitive data in Amazon S3. The data must be encrypted at rest, and access must be logged for audit purposes. Which combination of features meets these requirements?
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✓ S3 server-side encryption with AWS KMS (SSE-KMS) and AWS CloudTrail
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○ S3 server-side encryption with Amazon S3-managed keys (SSE-S3) and S3 access logs
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○ S3 client-side encryption and AWS Config
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○ S3 bucket policies and Amazon Macie
Answer:
A. S3 server-side encryption with AWS KMS (SSE-KMS) and AWS CloudTrail
S3 server-side encryption with AWS KMS (SSE-KMS) encrypts data at rest using keys managed in KMS. AWS CloudTrail logs API calls, including S3 operations, for auditing. SSE-S3 (B) uses S3-managed keys but does not provide the same audit trail for key usage as KMS. S3 access logs log access requests but not all API calls. Client-side encryption (C) encrypts data before uploading, but CloudTrail is still needed for auditing. Bucket policies and Macie (D) are for access control and data classification, not encryption and comprehensive auditing.
Question 3
Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures
A company wants to analyze real-time streaming data from IoT devices to detect anomalies. The data volume is variable and can spike unpredictably. Which AWS database service can ingest and query this data in real time with automatic scaling?
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✓ Amazon Timestream
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○ Amazon DynamoDB
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○ Amazon Aurora
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○ Amazon Redshift
Answer:
A. Amazon Timestream
Amazon Timestream is a fast, scalable, serverless time series database for IoT and operational applications. It automatically scales to handle variable ingestion rates and provides built-in time series analytics functions for anomaly detection. DynamoDB (B) is a NoSQL database for key-value workloads but is not specifically optimized for time series. Aurora (C) is a relational database, not optimized for time series ingestion at high scale. Redshift (D) is a data warehouse for analytical queries, not real-time streaming ingestion.
Question 4
Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures
Choose 2
A company is deploying a containerized application on Amazon ECS. The application requires persistent storage that can be shared across multiple tasks. Which TWO storage options can be used? (Select TWO.)
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✓ Amazon EBS volumes
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✓ Amazon EFS volumes
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○ Amazon S3
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○ Amazon FSx for Windows File Server
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○ Amazon DynamoDB
Answer:
A. Amazon EBS volumes | B. Amazon EFS volumes
Amazon EBS volumes (A) can be attached to ECS tasks for persistent block storage, but they are limited to a single task at a time unless using Multi-Attach (for specific instance types). Amazon EFS volumes (B) provide shared file storage that can be accessed by multiple ECS tasks concurrently. S3 (C) is object storage, not suitable for file system mounting. FSx for Windows (D) is for Windows-based file shares. DynamoDB (E) is a NoSQL database.
Question 5
Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures
Choose 2
A company has an application that uses an Amazon RDS DB instance. They need to improve the performance of read-heavy queries and also ensure high availability. Which TWO configurations should they implement? (Select TWO)
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✓ Enable Multi-AZ deployment.
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✓ Create one or more read replicas.
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○ Use a larger DB instance class.
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○ Use Provisioned IOPS storage.
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○ Enable automated backups.
Answer:
A. Enable Multi-AZ deployment. | B. Create one or more read replicas.
Enabling Multi-AZ (A) provides high availability by maintaining a synchronous standby replica in another AZ. Creating read replicas (B) offloads read traffic from the primary instance, improving read performance. Using a larger instance class (C) may improve performance but is vertical scaling and does not directly provide high availability. Provisioned IOPS (D) improves storage performance but not necessarily read query performance for complex queries. Automated backups (E) are for data recovery, not performance or availability.
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