SOA-C02 Reliability and Business Continuity Practice Test 13 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company has a production application running on Amazon ECS with Fargate. The application must be highly available across multiple Availability Zones. Which TWO configurations should be implemented?

Accepted Answer

Configure the ECS service to run tasks in at least two Availability Zones.. Options A and C are correct. Using an Application Load Balancer (Option A) distributes traffic across tasks. Running tasks in multiple Availability Zones (Option C) ensures availability if one AZ fails. Option B (single AZ) is not highly available. Option D (network mode) is not related to AZ distribution. Option E (spot) is not for high availability.

Answer

Configure the ECS service to run tasks in a single Availability Zone to reduce network latency.

Answer

Use the awsvpc network mode for the task definition.

Answer

Use Fargate Spot capacity providers to reduce costs.

Question 2

A company is running a web application on EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer. The application stores session data on the local instance storage. Users are experiencing session loss during scaling events. What should a SysOps administrator do to maintain session persistence?

Accepted Answer

Move session data to an ElastiCache for Redis cluster.. Option B is correct because using ElastiCache for session state allows instances to be terminated and replaced without losing session data. Option A is wrong because sticky sessions (session affinity) can cause uneven load and do not protect against instance failure. Option C is wrong because EBS volumes are not shared across instances. Option D is wrong because increasing instance size does not solve the session loss issue.

Answer

Increase the EC2 instance size to reduce the frequency of scaling events.

Answer

Attach an Amazon EBS volume to each instance and store session data there.

Answer

Enable sticky sessions on the Application Load Balancer.

Question 3

A company has a production DynamoDB table with on-demand capacity. They need to ensure business continuity with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 5 minutes and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 1 hour in case of a regional outage. What is the MOST cost-effective solution?

Accepted Answer

Enable DynamoDB global tables for the table.. Option A is correct because DynamoDB global tables provide cross-region replication with sub-second latency, meeting the 5-minute RPO, and failover can be automated within 1 hour. Option B is wrong because point-in-time recovery only protects against accidental writes/deletes, not regional outages. Option C is wrong because restoring a snapshot takes longer than 1 hour and data loss may exceed 5 minutes. Option D is wrong because cross-region read replicas are not available for DynamoDB.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to schedule daily backups and restore in another region.

Answer

Enable point-in-time recovery (PITR) on the table.

Answer

Configure cross-region read replicas for the table.

Question 4

A SysOps administrator needs to ensure that an EC2 instance automatically recovers from an underlying hardware failure. Which configuration should be used?

Accepted Answer

Create a CloudWatch alarm on the StatusCheckFailed metric and configure the recovery action.. Option C is correct because a CloudWatch alarm based on the StatusCheckFailed metric can trigger a recovery action. Option A is wrong because Auto Scaling recovery terminates and replaces the instance, which may change the private IP. Option B is wrong because termination protection only prevents accidental deletion. Option D is wrong because a Lambda function is unnecessary and more complex.

Answer

Use AWS Lambda to periodically check instance health and reboot if necessary.

Answer

Enable termination protection on the instance.

Answer

Place the instance in an Auto Scaling group with a minimum size of 1.

Question 5

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 6

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 7

A SysOps administrator is designing a disaster recovery plan for a web application. The application runs on EC2 instances in a single Availability Zone. What is the FIRST step to improve availability?

Accepted Answer

Deploy EC2 instances in at least two Availability Zones.. Option B is correct because distributing instances across multiple AZs is the most fundamental step to protect against AZ failure. Option A is wrong because while Multi-AZ RDS helps, the compute layer remains a single point of failure. Option C is wrong because it does not address compute availability. Option D is wrong because it does not protect against an AZ outage.

Answer

Use an Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic.

Answer

Enable Multi-AZ for the RDS database.

Answer

Create an Amazon CloudFront distribution for the application.

Question 8

A company's critical application uses an EBS-backed EC2 instance. They want to back up the instance daily with a retention policy of 30 days. What is the MOST efficient way to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) to schedule EBS snapshots with a 30-day retention.. Option C is correct because Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager can automate EBS snapshots with retention rules. Option A is wrong because AMI backups include additional metadata and are heavier; also DLM supports snapshots only. Option B is wrong because AWS Backup can handle this but DLM is more lightweight for EBS-only backups. Option D is wrong because creating snapshots manually via Lambda is less reliable and more complex.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to schedule EBS snapshots and set the retention policy.

Answer

Schedule a Lambda function to create an EBS snapshot daily and delete snapshots older than 30 days.

Answer

Create an AMI daily using AWS Backup and set the retention to 30 days.

Question 9

A company has a production RDS for PostgreSQL instance. They need to recover from a logical corruption that occurred 2 hours ago. Which recovery method will minimize data loss?

Accepted Answer

Perform a point-in-time recovery to a time just before the corruption occurred.. Option A is correct because point-in-time recovery can restore to any time within the backup retention period, allowing recovery to just before the corruption. Option B is wrong because a snapshot from 1 hour ago would include the corruption. Option C is wrong because a read replica contains the corruption if it was replicated. Option D is wrong because a full database restore from backup is less precise.

Answer

Restore from the latest automated snapshot taken 1 hour ago.

Answer

Use pg_dump to export the database and restore it.

Answer

Fail over to the read replica in another AZ.

Question 10

An application uploads files to an S3 bucket. The SysOps administrator needs to ensure that the files are automatically replicated to another bucket in a different AWS Region for disaster recovery. Which action should be taken?

Accepted Answer

Enable Cross-Region Replication on the source bucket.. Option C is correct because S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) automatically replicates objects to a destination bucket in another region. Option A is wrong because versioning alone does not replicate data. Option B is wrong because lifecycle policies only manage storage tiers, not replication. Option D is wrong because S3 Transfer Acceleration speeds up uploads but does not replicate.

Answer

Use S3 Transfer Acceleration for faster uploads.

Answer

Enable versioning on the source bucket.

Answer

Configure a lifecycle policy to transition objects to Glacier.

Question 11

Which TWO actions improve the availability of an application running on EC2 instances in a single Auto Scaling group? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

Use an Elastic Load Balancer with health checks to route traffic only to healthy instances.. Options A and B are correct. Distributing instances across multiple AZs and configuring ELB health checks are fundamental high availability practices. Option C is wrong because increasing instance size does not improve availability. Option D is wrong because CloudWatch alarms alert but do not automatically improve availability. Option E is wrong because EBS optimization improves performance, not availability.

Answer

Increase the instance size to handle higher load.

Answer

Create a CloudWatch alarm to notify when the CPU utilization exceeds 80%.

Answer

Enable EBS optimization on the instances.

Question 12

Which THREE measures help protect an S3 bucket from accidental data loss? (Choose 3)

Accepted Answer

Enable MFA Delete on the bucket.. Options A, C, and E are correct. Versioning preserves multiple versions, MFA Delete adds protection, and cross-region replication provides a copy in another region. Option B is wrong because encryption does not prevent data loss. Option D is wrong because lifecycle policies can delete objects, increasing risk.

Answer

Create a lifecycle policy to transition objects to S3 Glacier.

Answer

Enable server-side encryption on the bucket.

Question 13

Which TWO steps should a SysOps administrator take to ensure that an RDS for MySQL instance can withstand an Availability Zone failure? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

Enable Multi-AZ deployment.. Options A and D are correct. Multi-AZ creates a standby in another AZ, and automated backups with PITR allow recovery to a point in time. Option B is wrong because read replicas are for read scaling, not failover. Option C is wrong because provisioned IOPS improve performance, not availability. Option E is wrong because deletion protection prevents accidental deletion, not AZ failure.

Answer

Create a read replica in a different AZ.

Answer

Enable deletion protection on the DB instance.

Answer

Enable provisioned IOPS for the DB instance.

Question 14

A SysOps administrator runs the above command for an EC2 instance. The instance is running but the system status check is impaired. What does this indicate?

Accepted Answer

There is a problem with the underlying physical host that requires stopping and starting the instance.. Option C is correct because a system status check failure indicates a problem with the underlying physical host or AWS systems. Option A is wrong because instance status checks are separate. Option B is wrong because system status checks cover the host, not the OS. Option D is wrong because the instance status is 'ok', so the OS is reachable.

Answer

The instance is still running but the application is not responding.

Answer

The instance is unreachable due to a misconfigured security group.

Answer

The operating system on the instance has crashed.

Question 15

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.