Q24 — AWS DVA-C02 Ch.2

Question 24 of 100 | ← Chapter 2

A developer is building a multi-tier web application that must handle at least 5,000 requests per minute. The web tier must be fully stateless, while the application maintains user session state externally. How should session data be externalized to keep latency as low as possible?

• A. Create an Amazon RDS instance and implement session handling at the application level to store session data in the RDS database.
• B. Implement a shared file system solution across underlying Amazon EC2 instances and implement session handling at the application level to store session data on the shared file system.
• C. Create an Amazon ElastiCache Memcached cluster and implement session handling at the application level to store session data in the cluster. ✓
• D. Create an Amazon DynamoDB table and implement session handling at the application level to store session data in the table.

Correct Answer: C. Create an Amazon ElastiCache Memcached cluster and implement session handling at the application level to store session data in the cluster.

Explanation

For high-frequency, low-latency session storage, an in-memory solution is optimal. Amazon ElastiCache Memcached is a memory-optimized, distributed key-value store designed for temporary data like sessions—delivering sub-millisecond latency and high throughput. In contrast, RDS and DynamoDB involve disk I/O and network round trips, resulting in higher latency unsuitable for session data. Shared file systems introduce network latency and synchronization bottlenecks. Therefore, Option C is correct.