SOA-C02 Practice Test 2 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A SysOps administrator is troubleshooting an Amazon EC2 instance that is unreachable. The instance passes the system status check but fails the instance status check. Which TWO of the following are likely causes of this issue? (Choose TWO.)

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Misconfigured firewall or iptables. An instance status check failure indicates that the operating system or the instance itself is not functioning correctly, even though the underlying hardware (system status check) is healthy. A misconfigured firewall or iptables can block required network traffic, causing the instance to appear unreachable, while a corrupted file system can prevent the OS from booting or operating properly, both of which are detected by the instance status check.

Answer

Network connectivity issues

Answer

Detached EBS root volume

Answer

Insufficient memory for applications

Question 2

A SysOps administrator is designing a monitoring solution for a critical application running on EC2 instances. The application requires that all API calls to the environment are logged for security analysis. Which TWO services should the administrator use to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Logs. AWS CloudTrail is the correct service because it records all API calls made to the AWS environment, including calls made via the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, SDKs, and other services. CloudTrail logs provide the identity of the caller, the time of the call, the source IP address, and the request parameters, which are essential for security analysis. Option B (Amazon CloudWatch Logs) is also correct because CloudTrail logs can be delivered to CloudWatch Logs for centralized monitoring, alerting, and retention, enabling real-time analysis and integration with other AWS services.

Answer

Amazon GuardDuty

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AWS Config

Answer

VPC Flow Logs

Question 3

A company stores large volumes of log data in Amazon S3. The logs are accessed frequently for the first 30 days, then occasionally for the next 60 days, and after 90 days they are rarely accessed but must be retained for 7 years for compliance. The SysOps administrator wants to minimize storage costs while ensuring data is available when needed. Which S3 lifecycle policy configuration should be applied?

Accepted Answer

Transition objects to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days, and to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days. Delete after 7 years.. It aligns the lifecycle transitions with the access patterns: frequent access for the first 30 days (S3 Standard), occasional access for the next 60 days (S3 Standard-IA), and rare access after 90 days (S3 Glacier Deep Archive, the lowest-cost storage class for long-term retention). The deletion after 7 years meets compliance requirements while minimizing costs by using progressively cheaper storage classes.

Answer

Transition objects to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days, and to S3 Glacier after 60 days. Delete after 7 years.

Answer

Transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 30 days, and delete after 7 years.

Answer

Transition objects to S3 One Zone-IA after 30 days, and to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days. Delete after 7 years.

Question 4

A CloudFormation stack manages an RDS database, an S3 bucket, and several Lambda functions. During a recent stack update, a property change caused CloudFormation to replace the RDS instance, deleting the database and re-creating it — resulting in data loss. The team wants to prevent any future stack update from replacing or deleting the RDS instance without an explicit override. What CloudFormation feature accomplishes this?

Accepted Answer

Set a stack policy that denies Replace and Delete actions on the RDS resource; require an override policy to be explicitly provided when a replacement is intentional. A CloudFormation stack policy can explicitly deny Update (which includes replacement) and Delete actions on specific resources, such as the RDS instance. To intentionally perform a replacement, the user must provide an override stack policy during the update that allows the action, ensuring that no accidental replacement occurs without explicit consent.

Answer

Enable deletion protection on the RDS instance to prevent CloudFormation from deleting it

Answer

Use CloudFormation change sets to preview the update and manually reject any change set that includes a replacement

Answer

Add a DeletionPolicy: Retain attribute to the RDS resource in the template

Question 5

A company has two Amazon VPCs (VPC-A and VPC-B) in the same AWS Region with non-overlapping CIDR blocks. The SysOps administrator needs to establish private IP connectivity between the two VPCs with high throughput and minimal cost. Which solution should the administrator implement?

Accepted Answer

VPC Peering. VPC Peering is the correct solution because it allows direct private IP connectivity between two VPCs in the same AWS Region using the AWS global network backbone, with no bandwidth bottlenecks, no single point of failure, and no additional cost beyond data transfer charges. Since the VPCs have non-overlapping CIDR blocks, they can be peered without route conflicts, and traffic flows entirely within AWS without traversing the public internet or requiring a transit hub.

Answer

AWS Transit Gateway

Answer

AWS VPN CloudHub

Answer

AWS Direct Connect

Question 6

A SysOps administrator uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy infrastructure. The admin has a template that creates an EC2 instance with a custom software stack. The software stack must be installed and configured using PowerShell scripts. The admin wants to minimize operational overhead by automating the creation of an AMI that includes the software stack, and the AMI should be rebuilt on a weekly basis to include the latest security patches. Which combination of AWS services should be used?

Accepted Answer

Use EC2 Image Builder to define a component with the PowerShell scripts, create a recipe, and schedule a pipeline to run weekly.. EC2 Image Builder is purpose-built for automating the creation, patching, and testing of custom AMIs. By defining a component that encapsulates the PowerShell scripts, creating a recipe that references that component, and scheduling a pipeline to run weekly, the administrator achieves fully automated, repeatable AMI builds with minimal operational overhead. This directly meets the requirement for weekly rebuilds with the latest security patches.

Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Automation to run a PowerShell script on an existing EC2 instance, then manually create an AMI each week.

Answer

Use AWS CodePipeline with CodeBuild to run the PowerShell scripts and create an AMI using the AWS CLI, triggered by a weekly CloudWatch Events schedule.

Answer

Use Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling with a lifecycle hook to run the PowerShell script on instance launch, and schedule a weekly instance refresh.

Question 7

A company uses AWS Organizations and has multiple accounts. The security team requires that all Amazon S3 buckets across all accounts must be encrypted at rest with AWS KMS (SSE-KMS). The SysOps administrator needs to automatically detect non-compliant buckets and remediate them by enabling SSE-KMS. The solution must work across all existing and future accounts. Which AWS service should be used?

Accepted Answer

AWS Config with a managed rule and an automatic remediation action using AWS Systems Manager Automation.. AWS Config with the managed rule 's3-bucket-server-side-encryption-enabled' can evaluate all S3 buckets across accounts in an AWS Organization. When a non-compliant bucket is detected, an automatic remediation action using an AWS Systems Manager Automation document (e.g., 'AWS-EnableS3BucketEncryption') can enable SSE-KMS without manual intervention. This solution scales to existing and future accounts because AWS Config can be set up as an aggregator across the organization, and remediation actions apply automatically as new accounts are added.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail with a metric filter and Amazon CloudWatch alarm to trigger a Lambda function.

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor to check S3 bucket encryption and send notifications.

Answer

Amazon Macie to discover sensitive data and then manually encrypt buckets.

Question 8

A company has two VPCs in the same AWS account and Region: VPC-A (10.0.0.0/16) and VPC-B (10.1.0.0/16). The SysOps administrator needs to establish connectivity between these VPCs so that resources in VPC-A can reach resources in VPC-B using private IP addresses. The solution must be highly available and not involve a third-party appliance. Which solution should the administrator implement?

Accepted Answer

Create a VPC Peering connection between VPC-A and VPC-B. Update the route tables in each VPC to add routes to the other VPC's CIDR.. VPC Peering provides direct, private IP connectivity between two VPCs using the AWS global network, with no bandwidth bottleneck or single point of failure. By creating a peering connection and adding routes to the other VPC's CIDR in each VPC's route table, resources can communicate privately and the solution is highly available as the peering connection itself is redundant within AWS's infrastructure. No third-party appliance is required, and the setup is fully managed by AWS.

Answer

Create an AWS Transit Gateway and attach both VPCs to it. Configure route tables to allow communication.

Answer

Attach an internet gateway to each VPC and use Amazon Route 53 to resolve private DNS names over the internet.

Answer

Set up a site-to-site VPN connection between the two VPCs using AWS Virtual Private Gateway.

Question 9

A company runs a critical application on Amazon EC2 instances across multiple Availability Zones. The application stores state data on a shared Amazon EFS file system. The SysOps administrator needs to ensure that the file system remains available if an entire Availability Zone fails. The file system must also provide low-latency access from all instances. Which configuration meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Create an EFS file system with the Standard storage class in the same Region, and mount it from all instances using the regional mount target.. The EFS Standard storage class stores data redundantly across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) within a Region, ensuring high availability and durability even if an entire AZ fails. By mounting the file system using the regional mount target (which resolves to the EFS file system's regional DNS name), instances in any AZ can access the file system with low latency, as EFS automatically routes traffic to the most appropriate mount target in the same AZ. This configuration meets both the availability and low-latency requirements without additional replication or failover complexity.

Answer

Create an EFS file system with the One Zone storage class and mount it from all instances.

Answer

Create an EFS file system with the Standard storage class, enable replication to another Region, and use DNS failover.

Answer

Create an EFS file system with the Standard storage class, and enable Multi-AZ deployment.

Question 10

A company runs a batch processing application on Amazon EC2 instances every night. The job takes exactly 1 hour to complete and is time-sensitive. The SysOps administrator wants to minimize compute costs while ensuring the job can be interrupted and resumed if needed. Which EC2 purchasing option is most cost-effective?

Accepted Answer

Spot Instances. Spot Instances are the most cost-effective option because the batch job is fault-tolerant (can be interrupted and resumed) and runs for exactly 1 hour nightly. Spot Instances offer up to 90% discount compared to On-Demand, and with the ability to handle interruptions via checkpointing, they meet the requirement for cost minimization while supporting resumption.

Answer

On-Demand Instances

Answer

Reserved Instances (Standard 1-year)

Answer

Dedicated Hosts