SOA-C02 Practice Exam 57 — 20 Questions

Question 1

A SysOps administrator is designing a cost-effective architecture for a batch processing workload that runs once per day and can tolerate interruptions. The workload uses EC2 instances. Which TWO purchasing options should the administrator consider? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Spot Instances. Option B and Option D are correct. Spot Instances are ideal for fault-tolerant, interruptible workloads at a steep discount. On-Demand Instances can be used as a fallback if Spot capacity is unavailable. Option A is wrong because Reserved Instances require a 1- or 3-year commitment for a once-daily job. Option C is wrong because Dedicated Hosts are expensive. Option E is wrong because Capacity Reservations incur costs even when not running.

Answer

Dedicated Hosts

Answer

Reserved Instances (Standard)

Answer

Capacity Reservations

Question 2

A company runs a production web application on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. The application experiences variable traffic patterns, with peak usage during business hours. The company wants to optimize costs while maintaining performance. What should the SysOps administrator do?

Accepted Answer

Use a combination of On-Demand and Spot Instances, with On-Demand for baseline traffic and Spot for burst capacity.. The correct answer is B. A mixed pricing model with Spot Instances for flexible workloads and On-Demand for steady-state traffic can significantly reduce costs while ensuring availability. Option A is wrong because Reserved Instances require a 1- or 3-year commitment and are not suitable for variable traffic. Option C is wrong because Dedicated Hosts are expensive and not needed. Option D is wrong because increasing instance size without right-sizing may lead to over-provisioning and increased costs.

Answer

Increase the EC2 instance sizes to handle peak load at all times.

Answer

Purchase Reserved Instances for all instances to get the lowest hourly rate.

Answer

Use Dedicated Hosts to ensure consistent performance.

Question 3

A company uses Amazon S3 to store backups and logs. The total data volume is 50 TB and grows by 2 TB per month. The company requires that data be retained for 7 years. Which THREE actions will optimize storage costs? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Use S3 Lifecycle policies to transition data to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 30 days.. The correct answers are A, C, and D. S3 Lifecycle policies automatically transition objects to cheaper storage classes. S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest-cost storage for long-term retention. S3 Intelligent-Tiering automatically moves data between tiers based on access patterns. Option B is wrong because S3 Standard is expensive for long-term retention. Option E is wrong because requiring retrieval in minutes is not cost-effective for archival data.

Answer

Store all data in S3 Standard for the first year, then delete.

Answer

Use S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval to allow data retrieval in minutes.

Question 4

A SysOps administrator is investigating a cost increase in a production AWS account. They notice that an EC2 instance with a Reservation has been running continuously for months. The instance type is m5.large in us-east-1. The administrator sees that the instance is using a Standard Reserved Instance (RI) that was purchased 6 months ago for a 1-year term. However, the current utilization shows that the instance is only used for 4 hours per day. What should the administrator do to optimize costs without affecting availability?

Accepted Answer

Modify the existing RI to a smaller instance size (e.g., m5.large to m5.xlarge? no, smaller: e.g., t3.medium) and use Auto Scaling with a schedule to start/stop the instance during business hours.. Option B is correct because modifying the RI to a smaller size can better match the usage pattern, and using Auto Scaling with a scheduled scaling puts the instance to sleep when not needed. Option A is wrong because selling on the Reserved Instance Marketplace would lose the upfront payment and not address the over-provisioning. Option C is wrong because converting to On-Demand is more expensive for the hours used. Option D is wrong because simply stopping the instance during off-hours does not change the RI benefit; the RI will still be applied to the stopped instance (though RI cannot be applied to stopped instances; it would be wasted).

Answer

Stop the instance during off-hours using Instance Scheduler, but keep the RI as-is.

Answer

Sell the current RI on the Reserved Instance Marketplace and purchase a new Convertible RI for a smaller instance type.

Answer

Convert the RI to a Convertible RI and exchange it for a larger instance family to get more compute per hour.

Question 5

A company runs a web application on EC2 instances behind an ALB. They want to optimize costs for variable traffic patterns while maintaining high availability. Which solution is MOST cost-effective?

Accepted Answer

Use a mix of On-Demand and Spot Instances in an Auto Scaling group with a target tracking scaling policy.. Option B is correct because using Spot Instances in an Auto Scaling group with a mix of On-Demand and Spot instances provides cost savings while maintaining availability. Option A is wrong because Reserved Instances require a 1- or 3-year commitment and are not flexible for variable traffic. Option C is wrong because Dedicated Hosts are more expensive and not needed for this use case. Option D is wrong because On-Demand only is more expensive than using Spot.

Answer

Use Dedicated Hosts to run the application and share resources across multiple accounts.

Answer

Purchase Reserved Instances for the expected baseline capacity and use On-Demand for spikes.

Answer

Use only On-Demand EC2 Instances with an Auto Scaling group to handle variable traffic.

Question 6

A company runs a critical web application on EC2 instances behind an ALB. The application experiences unpredictable traffic spikes. The SysOps administrator wants to ensure that the application can handle spikes without performance degradation while minimizing costs. Which TWO actions should the administrator take?

Accepted Answer

Use a mix of On-Demand and Spot Instances in the Auto Scaling group.. Option A is correct because Spot Instances can reduce costs if the application can handle interruptions. Option D is correct because target tracking scaling adjusts capacity based on load. Option B is wrong because DynamoDB auto scaling is not relevant for EC2. Option C is wrong because scheduled scaling cannot handle unpredictable spikes. Option E is wrong because increasing instance size may not be as cost-effective as scaling out.

Answer

Use Amazon DynamoDB auto scaling to handle the spikes.

Answer

Use scheduled scaling to add instances during expected peak hours.

Answer

Use larger EC2 instance types to handle spikes.

Question 7

A SysOps administrator is troubleshooting a cost overrun in an AWS account. The cost explorer shows that data transfer costs have significantly increased. The architecture includes an Application Load Balancer (ALB) internet-facing, EC2 instances in private subnets, and an S3 bucket for static assets. Which action will MOST effectively reduce data transfer costs?

Accepted Answer

Implement a VPC Gateway Endpoint for S3 so that traffic from EC2 to S3 stays within the AWS network.. The correct answer is D. Data transfer from EC2 to S3 within the same region is free when using a VPC endpoint (gateway endpoint). Option A is wrong because CloudFront reduces latency but does not eliminate data transfer costs from ALB to EC2. Option B is wrong because moving to private ALB would require a VPN and may increase costs. Option C is wrong because NAT Gateway charges for data processing and transfer.

Answer

Enable Amazon CloudFront to cache static assets and reduce direct requests to the ALB.

Answer

Replace the NAT Gateway with a NAT instance to reduce hourly charges.

Answer

Change the ALB to internal (private) and use AWS Direct Connect for user access.

Question 8

A SysOps administrator needs to reduce data transfer costs for a web application hosted on EC2 instances in a VPC. The application serves content to users over the internet. Which TWO actions will help reduce data transfer costs? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Use a VPC Gateway Endpoint for Amazon S3 to keep S3 traffic within AWS.. The correct answers are A and B. Amazon CloudFront caches content at edge locations, reducing data transfer from origin to users. Using a VPC Gateway Endpoint for S3 keeps S3 traffic within AWS, avoiding internet data transfer costs. Option C is wrong because using a larger NAT Gateway increases costs. Option D is wrong because moving to a private subnet and using Direct Connect adds cost. Option E is wrong because using an ALB does not reduce data transfer costs.

Answer

Move all instances to private subnets and use AWS Direct Connect for user access.

Answer

Use an Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic.

Answer

Use a larger NAT Gateway to improve throughput.

Question 9

A company uses Amazon CloudWatch Logs to store application logs. The logs are retained indefinitely. The compliance team requires logs to be retained for 7 years. What is the MOST cost-effective way to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Set a log retention policy in CloudWatch Logs to expire logs after 7 years.. Option A is correct because CloudWatch Logs supports log retention policies that automatically expire logs after a specified period, reducing storage costs. Option B is wrong because exporting to S3 and then using S3 Lifecycle is more complex and may incur additional costs. Option C is wrong because exporting to S3 Glacier is an option but not the most cost-effective for 7-year retention if logs are accessed rarely; however, retention policy is simpler. Option D is wrong because disabling logging is not compliant.

Answer

Export logs to Amazon S3 and immediately transition to S3 Glacier Deep Archive.

Answer

Export logs to Amazon S3 and create an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 7 years.

Answer

Disable logging after 7 years to stop incurring costs.

Question 10

A SysOps administrator receives an AWS Budgets alert that the monthly cost for an S3 bucket has increased by 300% compared to the previous month. The bucket stores log files and uses S3 Standard storage. The bucket has versioning enabled and lifecycle policies that transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days. What is the MOST likely cause of the cost increase?

Accepted Answer

The cost of lifecycle transition requests to Glacier Deep Archive.. Option B is correct because S3 Lifecycle transition requests cost per object, and the transition to Glacier Deep Archive incurs a cost. Option A is wrong because S3 Standard storage costs are for the first 90 days, not the transition. Option C is wrong because object size is not mentioned as a change. Option D is wrong because data transfer costs are not typically associated with lifecycle transitions.

Answer

The increased storage costs due to S3 Standard storage for the first 90 days.

Answer

Data transfer costs for downloading logs from the bucket.

Answer

The cost of storing multiple versions of objects due to versioning.

Question 11

A company is using Amazon S3 to store data for analytics. The data is accessed frequently for the first 30 days, then rarely after that. The company wants to optimize storage costs. Which THREE actions should the SysOps administrator recommend?

Accepted Answer

Use S3 Intelligent-Tiering to automatically optimize storage costs.. Option B is correct because S3 Intelligent-Tiering automatically moves data between tiers. Option C is correct because lifecycle policies can transition objects to colder storage. Option E is correct because S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the cheapest for long-term archival. Option A is wrong because S3 Standard is more expensive than Standard-IA for infrequent access. Option D is wrong because S3 One Zone-IA is for infrequent access but does not provide high availability.

Answer

Use S3 One Zone-IA for all data after 30 days to reduce costs.

Answer

Use S3 Standard storage for all data to ensure high performance.

Question 12

A company is running a stateful web application on a single EC2 instance with a 500 GB gp2 EBS volume. The instance is currently at 80% CPU and memory utilization during peak hours. The company wants to improve performance and scalability without incurring high costs. What should the SysOps administrator do?

Accepted Answer

Implement an Application Load Balancer with an Auto Scaling group to distribute traffic across multiple instances.. The correct answer is B. Using an Application Load Balancer and Auto Scaling group allows the application to scale out based on demand, improving performance and cost efficiency. Option A is wrong because vertical scaling may cause downtime and is limited. Option C is wrong because converting to gp3 provides performance at lower cost but does not address scalability. Option D is wrong because increasing swap space is a temporary fix and does not improve performance.

Answer

Upgrade the instance to a larger size (vertical scaling).

Answer

Increase the swap space on the instance to handle memory pressure.

Answer

Migrate the EBS volume from gp2 to gp3 to improve I/O performance.

Question 13

A SysOps administrator reviews the CloudWatch metric data for an EC2 instance. The instance runs a web application that experiences high traffic between 12:00 and 14:00 UTC daily. The administrator wants to optimize costs while maintaining performance. What should the administrator do?

Accepted Answer

Create an Auto Scaling group with a scheduled scaling policy to add instances during peak hours.. The correct answer is C. The instance has low CPU utilization most of the day but spikes to 90% during peak hours. Using a scheduled Auto Scaling to add instances during peak hours ensures performance without over-provisioning. Option A is wrong because the instance is not constantly at high utilization. Option B is wrong because upgrading instance size increases cost during off-peak hours. Option D is wrong because a larger instance would be underutilized.

Answer

Convert the instance to a Reserved Instance to reduce hourly cost.

Answer

Replace the instance with a larger instance type and enable detailed monitoring.

Answer

Increase the instance size to handle peak load at all times.

Question 14

A company uses an Application Load Balancer (ALB) to distribute traffic to EC2 instances. The SysOps team wants to reduce costs by ensuring that idle capacity is minimized. Which configuration should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Configure an Auto Scaling group with a target tracking scaling policy based on ALB request count per target.. Option A is correct because a target tracking policy automatically adjusts capacity based on demand, minimizing idle resources. Option B is wrong because step scaling can be used but is less efficient than target tracking. Option C is wrong because adding more instances increases idle capacity. Option D is wrong because fixed instance count does not adapt to demand.

Answer

Configure an Auto Scaling group with a step scaling policy based on CPU utilization.

Answer

Increase the number of EC2 instances in the Auto Scaling group to handle peak load.

Answer

Set the Auto Scaling group desired capacity to the maximum expected load.

Question 15

A company is using AWS CloudFormation to deploy infrastructure. They want to reduce costs by identifying unused resources. Which AWS service should they use to monitor and report on resource utilization and cost?

Accepted Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor. Option D is correct because AWS Trusted Advisor provides cost optimization checks, including idle resources. Option A is wrong because AWS Config tracks configuration changes, not cost. Option B is wrong because CloudTrail logs API activity, not cost. Option C is wrong because CloudWatch monitors performance, not cost optimization.

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Question 16

A company is using Amazon CloudFront to deliver content to users worldwide. They notice high data transfer costs. Which THREE actions can reduce CloudFront data transfer costs?

Accepted Answer

Use a CloudFront price class that only uses the cheapest edge locations.. Option A is correct because price class selects only the cheapest edge locations. Option B is correct because compressing objects reduces transfer size. Option D is correct because origin shield reduces requests to the origin. Option C is wrong because Lambda@Edge adds cost. Option E is wrong because more edge locations increase coverage but not necessarily reduce cost.

Answer

Use Lambda@Edge to customize content.

Answer

Add more edge locations to improve cache hit ratio.

Question 17

A company has a production RDS for PostgreSQL database with a db.r5.large instance. The database experiences high read traffic during business hours. The SysOps administrator needs to improve read performance and ensure high availability at minimal cost. Which solution should the administrator implement?

Accepted Answer

Create a Multi-AZ deployment and then add a Read Replica in a different Availability Zone.. The correct answer is A. A Multi-AZ deployment with a Read Replica in another AZ provides both high availability and read scaling. Option B is wrong because increasing instance size is costly and does not provide HA. Option C is wrong because Multi-AZ alone does not offload read queries. Option D is wrong because ElastiCache adds complexity and cost, and is not directly a database solution.

Answer

Upgrade the instance to db.r5.xlarge and enable automatic backups.

Answer

Enable Multi-AZ on the existing instance to provide automatic failover but no read scaling.

Answer

Use Amazon ElastiCache for Redis to cache frequent queries.

Question 18

A SysOps administrator attached the IAM policy shown to a user. The user needs to launch EC2 instances for a cost-sensitive project. What is the impact of this policy on cost optimization?

Accepted Answer

The policy allows launching any number of t3.micro instances, potentially increasing costs if many instances are launched.. The correct answer is B. The policy allows running instances only of type t3.micro, which is a low-cost instance. However, it does not restrict the number of instances, so a user could launch many instances, increasing costs. Option A is wrong because the policy restricts instance type. Option C is wrong because t3.micro is a small instance, not a large one. Option D is wrong because the policy does allow running instances with a condition.

Answer

The policy is too restrictive because it only allows t3.micro instances, which may not be sufficient for production workloads.

Answer

The policy does not allow launching any instances because the condition is on RunInstances.

Answer

The policy ensures cost control by allowing only t3.micro instances, which are the cheapest.

Question 19

A company uses this IAM policy to restrict S3 uploads to the STANDARD storage class only. A developer tries to upload an object to the bucket using the CLI without specifying a storage class. What will happen?

Accepted Answer

The upload will succeed because the default storage class is STANDARD.. Option A is correct because the condition requires the storage class to be STANDARD. When no storage class is specified, the default is STANDARD, so the upload succeeds. Option B is wrong because the condition is satisfied. Option C is wrong because the default is STANDARD, not STANDARD-IA. Option D is wrong because the policy allows PutObject.

Answer

The upload will fail because the condition does not allow PutObject.

Answer

The upload will succeed if the bucket has a default storage class of STANDARD-IA.

Answer

The upload will fail because the condition requires explicit specification of the storage class.

Question 20

A company runs a production database on a db.r5.large RDS instance with Multi-AZ enabled. They notice that the CPU utilization is consistently below 10% and memory usage is below 20%. The application is not expected to grow significantly. Which action would optimize costs without sacrificing high availability?

Accepted Answer

Change the instance type to a smaller size, such as db.t3.medium, and keep Multi-AZ.. Option C is correct because the instance is over-provisioned; downsizing to a smaller instance type (e.g., db.r5.large to db.t3.medium) reduces cost. Multi-AZ should be retained for high availability. Option A is wrong because removing Multi-AZ sacrifices high availability. Option B is wrong because Reserved Instances require a commitment and may not be cost-effective if the instance type is changed. Option D is wrong because moving to a larger instance increases costs.

Answer

Remove Multi-AZ and use a single-AZ deployment to reduce costs.

Answer

Purchase a Reserved Instance for the current instance type to get a discount.

Answer

Change the instance type to a larger size, such as db.r5.xlarge, to improve performance.