SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Test 19 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is using Amazon API Gateway to expose a REST API. The API backend is a Lambda function that queries an Amazon DynamoDB table. During peak hours, the API returns HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests) errors. What is the MOST cost-effective way to reduce these errors?

Accepted Answer

Increase the throttling limits in API Gateway.. Option A is correct because increasing the API Gateway throttling limits allows more requests to pass through to the backend. Option B is wrong because increasing Lambda concurrency may help but is more expensive than adjusting throttling limits. Option C is wrong because DynamoDB auto-scaling addresses database capacity, not API throttling. Option D is wrong because API caching reduces backend calls for repeated requests but does not address throttling limits.

Answer

Enable API caching in API Gateway.

Answer

Enable DynamoDB auto-scaling.

Answer

Increase the reserved concurrency of the Lambda function.

Question 2

A company uses an Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance. The database is experiencing high read latency. The team wants to improve read performance with minimal application changes. Which TWO actions should the team take? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Create one or more read replicas and direct read queries to them.. Options A and C are correct. Option A: Read replicas offload read traffic from the primary instance, reducing latency. Option C: Increasing instance size (e.g., moving to a larger instance class) can improve I/O performance. Option B is wrong because Multi-AZ is for high availability, not read performance. Option D is wrong because increasing max_connections does not improve read latency. Option E is wrong because switching to Aurora is a major change and may not be minimal.

Answer

Enable Multi-AZ deployment for failover support.

Answer

Migrate the database to Amazon Aurora.

Answer

Increase the max_connections parameter.

Question 3

A company has a fleet of EC2 instances that process data from an SQS queue. The instances are part of an Auto Scaling group. The team notices that the queue depth is growing, but the Auto Scaling group is not scaling out quickly enough. Which THREE actions should the team take to improve the scaling responsiveness? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Use a custom CloudWatch metric for the SQS queue depth to drive scaling.. Options B, D, and E are correct. Option B: Using a custom metric based on queue depth allows scaling on actual workload. Option D: Reducing the cooldown period allows faster scaling actions. Option E: Using a step scaling policy provides more aggressive scaling when queue depth is high. Option A is wrong because increasing instance size does not improve scaling speed. Option C is wrong because decreasing the warm-up time for the metric is not a standard Auto Scaling feature.

Answer

Decrease the AWS CloudWatch metric warm-up time.

Answer

Increase the instance size in the launch template.

Question 4

A company uses AWS CloudFormation to manage infrastructure. A recent update to a stack failed, and the stack is now in a ROLLBACK_COMPLETE state. The team needs to investigate the cause and then redeploy the update. Which TWO actions should the team take? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

View the stack events in the CloudFormation console.. Options A and E are correct. Option A: Viewing stack events shows detailed error messages for each resource. Option E: Using ChangeSets allows previewing changes before applying. Option B is wrong because the stack is in ROLLBACK_COMPLETE, not UPDATE_ROLLBACK_FAILED. Option C is wrong because StackSets manage multiple accounts, not single stack debugging. Option D is wrong because the template is already in use; reviewing the previous version is not directly helpful.

Answer

Review the previous stack template version.

Answer

Use AWS CloudFormation StackSets to redeploy across accounts.

Answer

Execute a rollback to continue the rollback process.

Question 5

A company runs a web application on Amazon ECS with Fargate launch type. The application is behind an Application Load Balancer. During traffic spikes, the application becomes slow. The team suspects that the ECS service is not scaling fast enough. Which THREE actions should the team take to improve the scalability? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Decrease the scale-in and scale-out cooldown periods.. Options A, C, and E are correct. Option A: Increasing the number of tasks per service allows handling more concurrent requests. Option C: Decreasing the cooldown period allows faster scaling. Option E: Increasing the target value for the scaling metric makes scaling more aggressive. Option B is wrong because decreasing the number of subnets reduces capacity. Option D is wrong because decreasing the ALB idle timeout does not affect scaling.

Answer

Decrease the number of subnets in the VPC.

Answer

Decrease the ALB idle timeout.

Question 6

Refer to the exhibit. An IAM policy is attached to a group. A user in the group tries to stop an EC2 instance with the tag 'Environment=production'. The action fails. What is the MOST likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The ec2:ResourceTag condition key is not supported for ec2:StopInstances.. Option B is correct because the Condition element with the ec2:ResourceTag condition key requires that the instance have the specified tag. However, the condition key ec2:ResourceTag is not supported for ec2:StopInstances (it is supported for DescribeInstances). For StopInstances and StartInstances, the condition key is ec2:ResourceTag, but it must be used with the correct key; actually, the issue is that the condition is applied to all actions, but the condition key might not be evaluated as expected. However, the most common reason is that the ec2:ResourceTag condition key is not supported for StopInstances and StartInstances actions. Option A is wrong because the resource is '*', which includes all instances. Option C is wrong because the action 'ec2:StopInstances' is allowed, but the condition may not match. Option D is wrong because the policy does not specify a resource ARN, so it applies to all resources.

Answer

The Resource element is set to '*', which does not include the specific instance.

Answer

The ec2:StopInstances action is not listed in the policy.

Answer

The policy requires a resource ARN for the condition to work.

Question 7

Refer to the exhibit. A company configured an Amazon Route 53 alias record for a domain name pointing to an Application Load Balancer (ALB). Users report that occasionally they are directed to an unhealthy ALB node. Which change should the company make to improve availability?

Accepted Answer

Configure the ALB health check to mark unhealthy nodes.. Option D is correct because setting EvaluateTargetHealth to true ensures that Route 53 only returns IP addresses of healthy ALB nodes. The exhibit shows EvaluateTargetHealth: true, so it is already set. But the question says users are directed to unhealthy nodes, so perhaps the ALB health check is misconfigured. However, the correct answer is to ensure health checks are properly configured. Option A is wrong because changing to a simple record does not provide health checking. Option B is wrong because weighted routing is for distributing traffic, not for health. Option C is wrong because multi-value answer routing can return multiple values, but it does not inherently improve health checking beyond what alias records provide. Actually, the issue is that the ALB health check might be misconfigured; the best solution is to configure the ALB health check correctly. Among the options, D is the most relevant.

Answer

Change the record type to CNAME.

Answer

Use weighted routing policy.

Answer

Use multi-value answer routing.

Question 8

A company is using AWS CloudFormation to manage its infrastructure. They have a production stack that creates an Amazon RDS DB instance. The company wants to update the DB instance class to a larger size with minimal downtime. Which approach should they use?

Accepted Answer

Modify the DBInstanceClass property in the CloudFormation template and use an UpdatePolicy of AutoScalingReplacingUpdate.. Option A is correct because modifying the DBInstanceClass property in CloudFormation with an UpdatePolicy of AutoScalingReplacingUpdate will cause a replacement with minimal downtime. Option B is wrong because changing the template and updating the stack directly may cause downtime. Option C is wrong because creating a new stack and deleting the old one is not minimal downtime. Option D is wrong because AWS OpsWorks is not relevant.

Answer

Create a new CloudFormation stack with the new DB instance class and delete the old stack.

Answer

Edit the CloudFormation template to change the DBInstanceClass and update the stack directly.

Answer

Use AWS OpsWorks to manage the DB instance and apply the change.

Question 9

A company has a production AWS Lambda function that processes data from an Amazon SQS queue. The function often experiences throttling errors. The company wants to implement a solution to reduce throttling and improve processing performance. Which solution meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Increase the reserved concurrency for the Lambda function.. Option D is correct because increasing the Lambda function's reserved concurrency ensures the function can handle more concurrent executions, reducing throttling. Option A is wrong because Lambda does not support concurrency limits per queue. Option B is wrong because using a Lambda event source mapping for SQS already batches messages. Option C is wrong because adding more queues does not increase concurrency per function.

Answer

Configure the SQS queue to use a higher concurrency limit.

Answer

Create additional SQS queues and distribute messages across them.

Answer

Increase the batch size of the Lambda event source mapping.

Question 10

A Solutions Architect is reviewing an Amazon S3 bucket policy that grants access to users from another AWS account. The policy uses the Principal element with "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root". The users in the other account are unable to access the bucket. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The policy must specify the IAM user ARN, not the root user ARN.. Option A is correct because the root user ARN does not grant access to individual IAM users; the policy must allow the entire account or specific user ARNs. Option B is wrong because the bucket policy can refer to another account. Option C is wrong because S3 does not require VPC endpoints for cross-account access. Option D is wrong because the bucket policy can use IAM user ARNs.

Answer

The bucket policy must also include a VPC endpoint condition.

Answer

Cross-account access is not supported with bucket policies.

Answer

The bucket policy must use the CanonicalUser ID instead of the account ID.

Question 11

A company is running a web application on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. The application experiences high latency during peak hours. The company wants to improve performance by enabling HTTP/2. What is the simplest way to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Enable HTTP/2 on the Application Load Balancer's HTTPS listener.. Option B is correct because ALB natively supports HTTP/2 and can be enabled in the listener settings. Option A is wrong because upgrading to a Network Load Balancer does not support HTTP/2. Option C is wrong because CloudFront with HTTP/2 is more complex than directly enabling it on ALB. Option D is wrong because configuring EC2 instances directly does not improve latency at the load balancer level.

Answer

Configure the EC2 instances to support HTTP/2.

Answer

Place an Amazon CloudFront distribution in front of the ALB and enable HTTP/2.

Answer

Upgrade the load balancer to a Network Load Balancer.

Question 12

A company uses an AWS CodePipeline to deploy a serverless application. The pipeline includes a build stage that runs on AWS CodeBuild and a deploy stage that updates an AWS Lambda function. The company wants to add a manual approval step before the deploy stage. What is the most efficient way to implement this?

Accepted Answer

Add a manual approval action in the CodePipeline stage before deploy.. Option C is correct because CodePipeline has a built-in approval action that can be added to the pipeline. Option A is wrong because using a Lambda function for approval is unnecessary. Option B is wrong because SNS alone does not provide approval. Option D is wrong because CloudFormation is not needed for a simple approval step.

Answer

Add an AWS Lambda function that sends an email for approval.

Answer

Use an AWS CloudFormation stack with a wait condition.

Answer

Configure an Amazon SNS topic to notify approvers.

Question 13

A company is using Amazon DynamoDB as the primary database for a web application. The application experiences occasional throttling on writes. The company wants to implement a solution that automatically increases write capacity during traffic spikes. Which solution should they use?

Accepted Answer

Enable DynamoDB Auto Scaling for write capacity.. Option A is correct because DynamoDB Auto Scaling automatically adjusts write capacity based on utilization. Option B is wrong because Global Tables do not address throttling. Option C is wrong because DAX is a cache, not a scaling solution. Option D is wrong because On-Demand mode is not automatic scaling based on traffic patterns.

Answer

Switch to DynamoDB On-Demand capacity mode.

Answer

Implement DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) for caching.

Answer

Use DynamoDB Global Tables to distribute writes.

Question 14

A company has a production Amazon ECS service running on Fargate. The service needs to be updated to use a new task definition with different environment variables. The company wants to perform a rolling update with minimal impact. What is the correct way to update the service?

Accepted Answer

Update the service with the new task definition and use a rolling update deployment controller.. Option B is correct because updating the service with the new task definition and a rolling update deployment controller achieves a rolling update. Option A is wrong because deleting and recreating causes downtime. Option C is wrong because updating the task definition alone does not trigger deployment. Option D is wrong because creating a new service is unnecessary.

Answer

Delete the existing service and recreate it with the new task definition.

Answer

Modify the task definition and then restart the service.

Answer

Create a new service with the new task definition and delete the old one.

Question 15

A company is using an AWS Direct Connect connection to access its VPC. The company is experiencing intermittent connectivity issues. The Solutions Architect suspects a routing problem. Which AWS service can help diagnose the issue by providing real-time metrics and logs?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch with Direct Connect metrics. Option C is correct because AWS Direct Connect provides metrics and logs via CloudWatch and can be used with VPC Flow Logs. Option A is wrong because CloudTrail does not provide network metrics. Option B is wrong because VPC Flow Logs alone do not provide Direct Connect specific metrics. Option D is wrong because AWS Trusted Advisor provides recommendations but not real-time diagnostics.

Answer

VPC Flow Logs

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor