SOA-C02 Practice Test 24 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company has a production RDS for MySQL database. The SysOps administrator receives an alert that the database instance is running out of storage. The company requires high availability and minimal downtime during any modifications. What should the administrator do?

Accepted Answer

Modify the RDS instance to increase the allocated storage. Since the instance is Multi-AZ, the modification will be applied with minimal downtime.. Modifying the allocated storage for a Multi-AZ RDS instance can be done with minimal downtime; the modification is applied during the next maintenance window or immediately with a brief failover. Option A is wrong because it does not address the storage issue permanently. Option C is wrong because it requires more effort and potential downtime. Option D is wrong because read replicas do not increase storage capacity of the primary.

Answer

Add a read replica and use it for read traffic to reduce load on the primary.

Answer

Create a CloudWatch alarm to notify when storage is low, then manually clean up old data.

Answer

Create a new RDS instance with larger storage and migrate the data using AWS Database Migration Service.

Question 2

A company runs a stateless web application on EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. The application is deployed across multiple Availability Zones. The SysOps administrator wants to ensure that the application remains available even if an entire Availability Zone fails. What is the MOST effective way to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Configure the Auto Scaling group to launch instances in at least two Availability Zones.. Configuring the Auto Scaling group to use multiple Availability Zones ensures that instances are distributed, so failure of one AZ does not affect all instances. Option A is wrong because it does not provide redundancy. Option B is wrong because it does not automatically recover. Option D is wrong because a single AZ does not protect against AZ failure.

Answer

Create a CloudWatch alarm to reboot instances when they become unhealthy.

Answer

Use a single Availability Zone to reduce complexity.

Answer

Use a larger instance type to handle more traffic.

Question 3

A company runs a critical application on AWS Lambda functions. The functions are invoked by an API Gateway endpoint. The SysOps administrator needs to ensure that the application continues to work if an entire AWS Region becomes unavailable. What should the administrator do?

Accepted Answer

Deploy the same API Gateway and Lambda setup in a second Region and use Route 53 with failover routing.. Route 53 can route traffic to a second Region where the same infrastructure is deployed. Option A is wrong because Lambda functions are regional. Option B is wrong because API Gateway is also regional. Option D is wrong because Lambda@Edge is for edge locations, not regional failover.

Answer

Use AWS Global Accelerator to route traffic to the closest Region.

Answer

Configure Lambda functions with provisioned concurrency in multiple Regions.

Answer

Use Lambda@Edge to run the functions at edge locations.

Question 4

A SysOps administrator is reviewing the reliability of a production system that uses Amazon DynamoDB as its primary data store. The table has on-demand capacity and a single partition key. The application experiences occasional throttling errors during peak hours. Which action would most effectively improve reliability?

Accepted Answer

Review and optimize the partition key design to avoid hot partitions.. Option A is correct: On-demand capacity automatically scales to handle traffic spikes, but if the partition key design causes hot partitions, throttling can still occur. The most effective solution is to optimize the partition key to distribute workload evenly. Option B is incorrect because waiting for auto-scaling may not address hot partitions. Option C is incorrect because increasing read/write capacity in provisioned mode is a manual process and may not solve hot partition issues. Option D is incorrect because DAX is a caching layer that reduces read load but does not help with write throttling or hot partitions.

Answer

Switch to provisioned capacity and set high read/write units.

Answer

Enable auto-scaling and increase the maximum capacity.

Answer

Enable DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) to reduce read latency.

Question 5

A company wants to ensure that its EC2 instances automatically recover from an instance failure. Which feature should be used?

Accepted Answer

Enable EC2 Auto Recovery on the instance.. Option B is correct because EC2 Auto Recovery automatically recovers an instance if it becomes impaired due to an underlying hardware failure. Option A is wrong because EC2 Auto Scaling replaces instances based on scaling policies, not for individual instance failures. Option C is wrong because Elastic Load Balancing distributes traffic, it does not recover instances. Option D is wrong because CloudWatch alarms can trigger actions but not directly recover an instance by themselves.

Answer

Create a CloudWatch alarm that sends an email when the instance status check fails.

Answer

Configure an Auto Scaling group with a launch configuration.

Answer

Attach the instance to an Elastic Load Balancer.

Question 6

A company uses an RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ DB instance. They want to minimize downtime during a planned maintenance update that requires a database engine version upgrade. What should the SysOps administrator do?

Accepted Answer

Use the AWS Console to apply the maintenance update immediately; the Multi-AZ configuration will minimize downtime.. Option D is correct because Multi-AZ updates are applied to the standby first, then a failover occurs, minimizing downtime. Option A is wrong because a snapshot restore takes longer. Option B is wrong because a read replica is not used for writes and promotion takes time. Option C is wrong because Multi-AZ already provides high availability; disabling it increases downtime.

Answer

Modify the DB instance to be a Single-AZ deployment, then apply the upgrade.

Answer

Take a snapshot, restore it as a new instance, and upgrade that instance.

Answer

Create a read replica in the same region, upgrade the replica, and promote it.

Question 7

A SysOps administrator creates the above IAM policy for a user. The user reports that they cannot delete an object in the bucket 'my-bucket' even though they are using MFA. What is the likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The user is not using MFA when making the API call.. Option D is correct because the condition requires MFA, but the user might not be presenting MFA in the API call. Option A is wrong because the policy allows DeleteObject. Option B is wrong because the resource specifies the bucket. Option C is wrong because the condition is for all actions.

Answer

The resource ARN is missing the bucket-level permission.

Answer

The condition key aws:MultiFactorAuthPresent is incorrectly spelled.

Answer

The policy does not include s3:DeleteObjectVersion.

Question 8

A company runs a web application on EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an ALB. The application uses an RDS MySQL database. The SysOps administrator needs to improve the reliability of the database layer. Which TWO actions should the administrator take? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Enable Multi-AZ on the RDS instance.. Multi-AZ provides automatic failover, and automated backups enable point-in-time recovery. Read replicas improve read performance but not high availability. Manual snapshots are not sufficient for automatic recovery. Larger instance class improves performance, not reliability.

Answer

Take a manual snapshot every hour.

Answer

Create a read replica in a different Region.

Answer

Increase the DB instance class to the largest available.

Question 9

A company runs a stateful application on EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. The application maintains state in memory. The SysOps administrator wants to ensure that when an instance is terminated, the state is preserved and a new instance can resume operation. Which approach should the administrator use?

Accepted Answer

Use an Auto Scaling lifecycle hook to offload state before termination.. Option B is correct: A lifecycle hook can intercept the termination event and run a script to offload state to S3 or another durable store. Option A is incorrect because ELB connection draining only stops new connections; it does not preserve state. Option C is incorrect because graceful shutdown scripts can run on termination, but they may not complete if the instance is terminated quickly. Option D is incorrect because a warm standby is costly and not designed for state offloading.

Answer

Use a warm standby instance that takes over when the primary fails.

Answer

Configure the EC2 instance to run a script on shutdown to save state locally.

Answer

Enable connection draining on the ALB.

Question 10

A company runs a stateful web application on a single EC2 instance. To improve reliability, the company wants to implement a highly available architecture. What should the SysOps administrator do?

Accepted Answer

Refactor the application to store session state externally (e.g., ElastiCache), then deploy it across multiple AZs with an Application Load Balancer.. Option C is correct because making the application stateless and distributing instances across multiple AZs with a load balancer provides high availability. Option A is wrong because a larger instance is still a single point of failure. Option B is wrong because a standby instance is not automatically used; failover is manual. Option D is wrong because Route 53 health checks alone do not handle failover automatically if the instance is stateful.

Answer

Migrate the application to a larger instance type.

Answer

Create a standby EC2 instance and use an Elastic IP to fail over manually.

Answer

Use Route 53 health checks to route traffic to a secondary instance if the primary fails.

Question 11

A company's S3 bucket contains critical data. The bucket policy allows s3:PutObject and s3:GetObject for all authenticated users in the account. A SysOps administrator needs to ensure that if the bucket is accidentally deleted, the objects can be recovered. Which solution meets this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Enable versioning on the bucket and enable MFA delete.. Option D is correct because S3 versioning combined with MFA delete protection prevents accidental deletion of versions. Option A is wrong because cross-region replication replicates objects but does not protect against bucket deletion; the replicated bucket could also be deleted. Option B is wrong because a bucket policy cannot prevent deletion of the bucket itself; deletion is controlled by IAM. Option C is wrong because bucket policies do not prevent deletion of the bucket; they only control access to objects.

Answer

Set a bucket policy that requires MFA for any s3:DeleteObject action.

Answer

Add a bucket policy that denies s3:DeleteBucket for all principals.

Answer

Enable cross-region replication on the bucket.

Question 12

A SysOps administrator deploys the above CloudFormation template. The stack creation fails with an error. What is the most likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The VolumeAttachment resource is missing the Device property.. Option B is correct because the VolumeAttachment resource requires the Device property, which is missing. Option A is wrong because AWS::EC2::Volume does not require a snapshot. Option C is wrong because the format is correct. Option D is wrong because the AvailabilityZone is specified for both the instance and volume.

Answer

The EBS volume must specify a SnapshotId.

Answer

The template uses a deprecated AWSTemplateFormatVersion.

Answer

The instance and volume are in different Availability Zones.

Question 13

A company runs a critical application on EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. The group uses a dynamic scaling policy based on CPU utilization. The SysOps administrator wants to ensure that the application remains available during a planned maintenance event that will take down one of the Availability Zones. Which TWO actions should the administrator take? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Update the Auto Scaling group to remove the affected Availability Zone from the list of enabled AZs.. Updating the ASG to use only the remaining AZs and rebalancing ensures capacity is maintained. Increasing desired capacity preemptively provides a buffer. Terminating instances prematurely reduces capacity. Updating the AMI does not help with AZ maintenance.

Answer

Manually terminate all instances in the affected Availability Zone.

Answer

Create a new launch configuration with a different AMI.

Answer

Disable the dynamic scaling policy to prevent scaling.

Question 14

A SysOps administrator is tuning the health check of an Auto Scaling group. The group uses an ALB. The application takes up to 2 minutes to start. The health check settings are: HealthCheckGracePeriod=300, HealthCheckType=EC2. The administrator notices that instances are often marked unhealthy and terminated shortly after launch. What should the administrator change?

Accepted Answer

Change the HealthCheckType to EC2 (already EC2, but change to ELB).. Option C is correct: The HealthCheckGracePeriod is 300 seconds (5 minutes), which is sufficient for the 2-minute startup. However, HealthCheckType=EC2 means the ASG uses EC2 status checks, not ALB health checks. The EC2 status checks may fail if the instance is not fully initialized. Changing to ELB health checks allows the ASG to use the ALB health check, which can be configured to wait for the application to respond. Option A is incorrect because the grace period is already long enough. Option B is incorrect because increasing the grace period doesn't fix the health check type mismatch. Option D is incorrect because decreasing the grace period would make the problem worse.

Answer

Increase the HealthCheckGracePeriod to 600 seconds.

Answer

Change the HealthCheckType to ELB.

Answer

Decrease the HealthCheckGracePeriod to 120 seconds.

Question 15

A company runs a web application on EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. The application stores session data in a DynamoDB table. To improve reliability, the SysOps administrator needs to ensure that session data is preserved if an EC2 instance fails. Which action should the administrator take?

Accepted Answer

Use DynamoDB to store session data, making it accessible from any instance.. Option A is correct because storing session data externally (e.g., in DynamoDB) ensures it survives instance failure. Option B is incorrect because EBS volumes are tied to a single AZ; mounting the same volume to multiple instances is not supported. Option C is incorrect because ElastiCache sessions are ephemeral and lost on cache node failure. Option D is incorrect because ELB sticky sessions cause uneven load and do not preserve session data on instance failure.

Answer

Enable sticky sessions (session affinity) on the ALB.

Answer

Mount the same EBS volume to all EC2 instances to share session data.

Answer

Store session data in an ElastiCache Memcached cluster.