SOA-C02 Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation — 20 Questions

Question 1

A team uses AWS CodeDeploy with a deployment configuration of CodeDeployDefault.OneAtATime to deploy a web application to an Auto Scaling group. Instances are behind an Application Load Balancer. The deployment fails with 'The overall deployment failed because too many individual instances failed deployment.' What is the most likely cause?

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

Accepted Answer

The health check grace period on the Auto Scaling group is too short.. The deployment fails because the health check grace period on the Auto Scaling group is too short. When CodeDeploy deploys one instance at a time (CodeDeployDefault.OneAtATime), the instance is taken out of service, updated, and then returned to the load balancer. If the grace period expires before the instance passes its health checks, the Auto Scaling group marks it as unhealthy and terminates it, causing the deployment to fail with 'too many individual instances failed.'

Answer

The target group deregistration delay is too long.

Answer

The CodeDeploy agent is not installed on the instances.

Answer

The deployment group is configured to skip the ELB health check.

Question 2

A development team uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy infrastructure. They want to update a stack but first need to review how the changes will impact existing resources before applying them. Which CloudFormation feature should they use?

Accepted Answer

Change sets. Change sets allow you to preview how proposed changes to a CloudFormation stack will affect your running resources before you apply them. They generate a summary of the changes (additions, modifications, deletions) based on the new template and parameters, enabling you to assess impact such as resource replacement or updates without executing the changes. This directly addresses the team's requirement to review changes before applying them.

Answer

Stack policies

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Condition functions

Answer

Custom resources

Question 3

A company uses AWS CodeDeploy to deploy a new version of an application to EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer. The company requires zero downtime during the deployment. Which deployment configuration should be used?

Accepted Answer

Create a blue/green deployment by configuring CodeDeploy to launch new instances and shift traffic after validation.. A blue/green deployment with CodeDeploy, where new instances are launched and traffic is shifted only after validation, ensures zero downtime by keeping the old environment (blue) fully serving traffic until the new environment (green) is verified healthy. This approach avoids any in-place updates that could temporarily reduce capacity or cause service disruption, meeting the requirement for zero downtime during deployment.

Answer

CodeDeployDefault.AllAtOnce

Answer

CodeDeployDefault.OneAtATime

Answer

CodeDeployDefault.EC2/OnPremises: BlueGreenDeployment

Question 4

A company uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy a three-tier web application. The SysOps administrator wants to update a critical parameter, such as the instance type, and ensure that the change is applied without recreating the EC2 instance, if possible. Which CloudFormation stack update feature should be used to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Change sets. Change sets allow you to preview the changes that will be made to your stack resources before executing them. For an update that modifies an instance type, the change set will show whether the change causes replacement. In this case, AWS::EC2::Instance does not support in-place updates for InstanceType and will require replacement, so the change set would confirm that. By using a change set, you can review the impact before applying the update.

Answer

Stack policy

Answer

Update with drift detection

Answer

Directly edit the stack template and use the update stack action

Question 5

A company uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy a web application. The template currently hard-codes the EC2 instance type (e.g., t3.medium). The SysOps administrator wants to make the instance type configurable so that different environments (dev, test, prod) can use different instance types without modifying the template each time. Which CloudFormation feature enables this?

Accepted Answer

Parameters. CloudFormation Parameters allow you to pass custom values into a template at stack creation or update time. By defining a parameter for the instance type (e.g., with allowed values like t3.micro, t3.medium, t3.large), you can reuse the same template across dev, test, and prod environments without editing the template file itself.

Answer

Mappings

Answer

Conditions

Answer

Outputs

Question 6

A SysOps administrator uses AWS CodeDeploy to deploy a new version of an application to an Auto Scaling group. The deployment uses the 'CodeDeployDefault.OneAtATime' deployment configuration. During the deployment, the first instance succeeds, but subsequent instances fail because the new application version has a bug that causes the application health check to fail. The administrator wants to immediately roll back the change and restore the previous working version on all instances. Which action should the administrator take?

Accepted Answer

Initiate a rollback from the CodeDeploy console to redeploy the previous working revision.. CodeDeploy supports automatic and manual rollbacks to a previous working revision. When a deployment fails, the administrator can initiate a rollback from the CodeDeploy console, which redeploys the last successful revision to all instances in the deployment group, including those that were already updated. This ensures the previous working version is restored across the entire Auto Scaling group.

Answer

Stop the deployment immediately; the instances that have already been updated will revert automatically.

Answer

Edit the deployment group settings to pause deployments after a failure, then manually fix the instances.

Answer

Redeploy the same failing revision but with a different deployment configuration.

Question 7

A company uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy a three-tier web application. The template includes an Amazon RDS DB instance. The SysOps administrator needs to ensure that the database password is not exposed in the template or in the stack outputs. The password should be stored securely and rotated automatically every 90 days. Which solution should the administrator use?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Secrets Manager to store the password and reference it using the dynamic reference {{resolve:secretsmanager:secretId:secretString:password}} in the CloudFormation template. Enable automatic rotation.. AWS Secrets Manager is designed to securely store secrets like database passwords, supports automatic rotation (including a 90-day schedule), and can be referenced in CloudFormation templates using the dynamic reference {{resolve:secretsmanager:secretId:secretString:password}}. This ensures the password is never exposed in the template or stack outputs, and rotation is handled automatically without manual intervention.

Answer

Store the password as a plaintext parameter in the CloudFormation template and mark it as NoEcho.

Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store to store the password as a SecureString and reference it using the dynamic reference {{resolve:ssm-secure:password}} in the template.

Answer

Hardcode the password in a userdata script that is passed to the EC2 instances.

Question 8

A company uses AWS CodePipeline to deploy a web application. The pipeline has a source stage (Amazon S3) and a deploy stage (AWS Elastic Beanstalk). The SysOps administrator needs to add a manual approval step before the deployment proceeds to the production environment. Which action should the administrator take?

Accepted Answer

Add a manual approval action in the pipeline using the AWS CodePipeline approval action type.. AWS CodePipeline natively supports a manual approval action type that can be added as a stage in the pipeline. This action pauses the pipeline execution until an authorized user manually approves or rejects the deployment, allowing the SysOps administrator to gate the deployment to the production environment without external services.

Answer

Add an approval stage in the pipeline using the Amazon SNS topic as a notification method.

Answer

Use an AWS CloudFormation change set to require manual approval.

Answer

Create a separate pipeline for production and trigger it manually.

Question 9

A company uses AWS Organizations with multiple member accounts. The SysOps administrator needs to deploy a common AWS CloudFormation template that creates an IAM role across all member accounts in the organization. Which AWS service should be used to deploy this template across accounts?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudFormation StackSets. AWS CloudFormation StackSets is the correct service because it extends CloudFormation functionality to deploy templates across multiple accounts and regions from a single management account. StackSets uses a self-managed or service-managed permission model, and with AWS Organizations, it can automatically deploy to all member accounts in the organization or specified organizational units (OUs), making it ideal for deploying a common IAM role across all accounts.

Answer

AWS CodePipeline with cross-account deployment actions

Answer

AWS CloudFormation cross-stack references

Answer

AWS Service Catalog

Question 10

A SysOps administrator uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy infrastructure. The administrator has a template that creates an Amazon EC2 instance and an Amazon RDS DB instance. The administrator needs to reuse the same template for development, test, and production environments, where the only differences are the EC2 instance type and the RDS DB instance class. Which CloudFormation feature should be used to define these environment-specific values?

Accepted Answer

Parameters. Parameters are the correct CloudFormation feature to define environment-specific values because they allow you to input custom values (e.g., EC2 instance type and RDS DB instance class) at stack creation or update time without modifying the template. This enables reuse of the same template across development, test, and production environments by simply passing different parameter values for each environment.

Answer

Mappings

Answer

Conditions

Answer

Outputs

Question 11

A SysOps administrator uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy a three-tier application. The administrator has a single template that can be used for development, test, and production environments. The only differences between environments are the EC2 instance type and the RDS DB instance class. Which CloudFormation feature should the administrator use to define these environment-specific values without duplicating the template?

Accepted Answer

Parameters. Parameters allow you to input environment-specific values (e.g., EC2 instance type, RDS DB instance class) at stack creation or update time without modifying the template. This is the correct feature because the question explicitly requires defining values that differ per environment while reusing a single template.

Answer

Conditions

Answer

Mappings

Answer

Outputs

Question 12

A company uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy infrastructure. The SysOps administrator has a template that creates an Amazon EC2 instance and an Amazon RDS DB instance. The administrator needs to reuse the same template for development, test, and production environments, where the only differences are the EC2 instance type and the RDS DB instance class. Which CloudFormation feature should be used to define these environment-specific values?

Accepted Answer

Parameters. Parameters are the correct CloudFormation feature because they allow you to pass environment-specific values (such as EC2 instance type and RDS DB instance class) into the template at stack creation or update time. This enables reuse of the same template across development, test, and production environments without modifying the template itself, simply by providing different parameter values for each environment.

Answer

Nested stacks

Answer

Mappings

Answer

Conditions

Question 13

A company uses AWS CodeDeploy to deploy a new version of a web application to a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances. The SysOps administrator wants to shift 10% of traffic to the new version first, monitor for errors, and then after manual approval, deploy to the remaining 90%. Which CodeDeploy deployment configuration should be used?

Accepted Answer

CodeDeployDefault.Canary10Percent5Minutes. The Canary10Percent5Minutes deployment configuration shifts 10% of traffic to the new version, waits 5 minutes for monitoring, and then automatically deploys to the remaining 90%. This matches the requirement for a 10% traffic shift with a monitoring window, though the question specifies manual approval—CodeDeploy does not natively support manual approval within a deployment configuration; instead, you would combine this configuration with a manual approval step in a CodePipeline or use a lifecycle hook. However, among the given options, this is the only one that provides the 10% traffic shift and a built-in wait period.

Answer

CodeDeployDefault.AllAtOnce

Answer

CodeDeployDefault.HalfAtATime

Answer

Custom configuration with 10% and manual approval

Question 14

A company uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy a multi-tier application. The template uses nested stacks. One of the nested stacks creates an Auto Scaling group. The administrator wants to update the Auto Scaling group's launch configuration to use a new AMI ID. The AMI ID is stored in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store. The administrator wants to ensure that the stack update automatically uses the latest AMI ID value from Parameter Store. What should the administrator do?

Accepted Answer

Use a CloudFormation dynamic reference to the parameter store in the template.. CloudFormation dynamic references for Systems Manager Parameter Store (using the `{{resolve:ssm:/parameter-name}}` syntax) automatically resolve the latest parameter value at stack creation or update time. This ensures that the launch configuration always uses the current AMI ID from Parameter Store without manual intervention or hardcoding.

Answer

Use a CloudFormation mapping to map the AMI ID.

Answer

Use a custom resource to call Systems Manager to retrieve the AMI ID.

Answer

Use a CloudFormation parameter with a default value that matches the AMI ID.

Question 15

A SysOps administrator needs to automatically deploy a new version of an application to a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances every time changes are pushed to the main branch of a code repository hosted on AWS CodeCommit. Which combination of AWS services should be used?

Accepted Answer

AWS CodePipeline, AWS CodeBuild, and AWS CodeDeploy.. AWS CodePipeline orchestrates the continuous delivery workflow by detecting changes in the CodeCommit repository, then automatically triggering AWS CodeBuild to compile and package the application, and finally deploying the new version to EC2 instances using AWS CodeDeploy. This combination provides a fully managed, end-to-end CI/CD pipeline that meets the requirement of deploying on every push to the main branch.

Answer

AWS CloudFormation and AWS CodeDeploy.

Answer

Amazon EventBridge and AWS Systems Manager.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail and AWS Lambda.

Question 16

A SysOps administrator uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy infrastructure. The administrator needs to store and reference sensitive data such as database passwords in the stack without hardcoding them in the template. Which CloudFormation feature should be used?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store secure strings and dynamic references in the CloudFormation template. AWS CloudFormation supports dynamic references (using the `resolve:ssm` or `resolve:ssm-secure` syntax) that allow you to reference Systems Manager Parameter Store secure strings directly in the template. This keeps sensitive data like database passwords out of the template and the stack's metadata, ensuring they are not exposed in plaintext during stack operations or in the console.

Answer

Use AWS Secrets Manager and reference the secret using a static reference in the template

Answer

Define plaintext parameters in the template and mark them as NoEcho

Answer

Store the secrets in an encrypted S3 object and reference it via a URL in the template

Question 17

A SysOps administrator deploys a web application using AWS Elastic Beanstalk. The administrator wants to deploy a new application version with zero downtime and minimize the risk of failure by launching a completely new set of instances before swapping traffic. Which deployment policy should the administrator choose?

Accepted Answer

Immutable. The Immutable deployment policy (Option D) is correct because it launches a completely new set of instances in a separate Auto Scaling group, deploys the new application version to them, and then swaps the Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) traffic from the old instances to the new ones in a single, atomic swap. This ensures zero downtime and minimizes risk by keeping the original environment fully intact until the new instances pass health checks, allowing an immediate rollback by simply swapping traffic back.

Answer

All at once

Answer

Rolling

Answer

Rolling with additional batch

Question 18

A company has multiple AWS accounts managed under AWS Organizations. The SysOps administrator needs to deploy a common AWS CloudFormation template to all accounts in a specific organizational unit (OU), ensuring consistent security group configurations across the organization. Which AWS service should the administrator use to perform this deployment?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudFormation StackSets. AWS CloudFormation StackSets extends the functionality of CloudFormation by allowing you to deploy a common template across multiple accounts and regions from a single management account. In this scenario, the administrator can target the specific organizational unit (OU) within AWS Organizations, ensuring consistent security group configurations are applied to all member accounts without manual intervention.

Answer

AWS CodePipeline with cross-account actions

Answer

AWS Service Catalog portfolio

Answer

AWS Systems Manager Automation

Question 19

A SysOps administrator uses AWS CodeDeploy to deploy applications to Amazon EC2 instances. The administrator wants to ensure that during deployment, traffic is shifted from the original instances to the new instances incrementally in 10-minute intervals. The deployment should automatically roll back if any health check fails. Which deployment configuration should the administrator choose?

Accepted Answer

Custom deployment configuration with 25% every 10 minutes and traffic routing enabled. It allows a custom deployment configuration that shifts traffic in 10-minute intervals (e.g., 25% every 10 minutes) with automatic rollback on health check failure. The built-in configurations (AllAtOnce, OneAtATime, HalfAtATime) do not support incremental traffic shifting with time-based intervals; only a custom configuration can achieve the specified 10-minute interval requirement.

Answer

CodeDeployDefault.AllAtOnce

Answer

CodeDeployDefault.OneAtATime

Answer

CodeDeployDefault.HalfAtATime

Question 20

A SysOps administrator maintains an AWS CloudFormation stack for a web application. The administrator needs to update the stack to change the instance type of an Amazon EC2 instance. The administrator wants to review the changes before applying them and ensure that any updates that would replace the instance are clearly identified. Which CloudFormation feature should the administrator use?

Accepted Answer

Change Sets. Change Sets allow the administrator to preview the proposed changes to a CloudFormation stack before executing them. They clearly indicate whether a resource will be updated without replacement (e.g., modifying an attribute that supports in-place update) or replaced (e.g., changing the instance type of an EC2 instance, which requires recreation). This gives the administrator the ability to review the exact impact and identify any resource replacements before applying the update.

Answer

Stack Policies

Answer

Resource Signals

Answer

Nested Stacks