- A
Configure a scheduled scaling policy for the Amazon ECS service to add tasks during known peak hours.
Why wrong: Scheduled scaling does not handle unpredictable spikes.
- B
Launch tasks in a single Availability Zone and use an Application Auto Scaling target tracking policy based on CPU utilization.
Why wrong: Single AZ is not resilient; AZ failure would cause downtime.
- C
Configure a step scaling policy for the Amazon ECS service and increase the task memory size.
Why wrong: Step scaling policy helps but increasing memory alone does not add resilience.
- D
Configure an Application Auto Scaling target tracking policy based on memory utilization and enable Amazon ECS service auto-recovery.
Target tracking scales based on demand; service auto-recovery replaces failed tasks, ensuring resilience.
Quick Answer
The correct answer is to configure an Application Auto Scaling target tracking policy based on memory utilization and enable Amazon ECS service auto-recovery. This combination works because memory utilization is a direct indicator of load for a stateless web application on Fargate, allowing the target tracking policy to automatically adjust the desired task count during intermittent traffic spikes, while service auto-recovery replaces unhealthy tasks to maintain resilience against underlying infrastructure failures. On the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional DOP-C02 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of how to pair scaling policies with fault-tolerance mechanisms specific to Fargate, where you cannot manage underlying hosts. A common trap is choosing a step scaling policy based on CPU, but memory utilization is often the more relevant metric for web applications, and step scaling requires manual thresholds that can lag behind spikes. Remember the mnemonic “Memory for Web, Auto-Recovery for Health” to link the correct metric and recovery action.
DOP-C02 Resilient Cloud Solutions Practice Question
This DOP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of resilient cloud solutions. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company runs a stateless web application on Amazon ECS with Fargate launch type. The application experiences intermittent traffic spikes. The company wants to ensure that the application can scale automatically and remain resilient to underlying infrastructure failures. Which combination of actions should the DevOps engineer take?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Configure an Application Auto Scaling target tracking policy based on memory utilization and enable Amazon ECS service auto-recovery.
Option D is correct because it combines Application Auto Scaling target tracking based on memory utilization, which is a relevant metric for a stateless web application to handle traffic spikes, with Amazon ECS service auto-recovery, which automatically replaces unhealthy tasks to ensure resilience against underlying infrastructure failures. This approach provides both automatic scaling and fault tolerance without manual intervention.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Configure a scheduled scaling policy for the Amazon ECS service to add tasks during known peak hours.
Why it's wrong here
Scheduled scaling does not handle unpredictable spikes.
- ✗
Launch tasks in a single Availability Zone and use an Application Auto Scaling target tracking policy based on CPU utilization.
Why it's wrong here
Single AZ is not resilient; AZ failure would cause downtime.
- ✗
Configure a step scaling policy for the Amazon ECS service and increase the task memory size.
Why it's wrong here
Step scaling policy helps but increasing memory alone does not add resilience.
- ✓
Configure an Application Auto Scaling target tracking policy based on memory utilization and enable Amazon ECS service auto-recovery.
Why this is correct
Target tracking scales based on demand; service auto-recovery replaces failed tasks, ensuring resilience.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often assume CPU utilization is the only valid scaling metric for web applications, but memory utilization can be more appropriate for stateless workloads, and they may overlook the critical need for service auto-recovery to handle infrastructure failures in Fargate.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Application Auto Scaling target tracking policies work by maintaining a target value for a specified CloudWatch metric (e.g., memory utilization), automatically adjusting the desired count of ECS tasks to keep the metric close to the target. ECS service auto-recovery leverages the ECS service scheduler to detect when a task enters a STOPPED state due to underlying infrastructure failure (e.g., Fargate platform issues) and automatically launches a replacement task, ensuring high availability. In practice, for stateless web apps, memory utilization is often a better scaling metric than CPU because it correlates more directly with request load and avoids false positives from CPU bursts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this DOP-C02 question test?
Resilient Cloud Solutions — This question tests Resilient Cloud Solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Configure an Application Auto Scaling target tracking policy based on memory utilization and enable Amazon ECS service auto-recovery. — Option D is correct because it combines Application Auto Scaling target tracking based on memory utilization, which is a relevant metric for a stateless web application to handle traffic spikes, with Amazon ECS service auto-recovery, which automatically replaces unhealthy tasks to ensure resilience against underlying infrastructure failures. This approach provides both automatic scaling and fault tolerance without manual intervention.
What should I do if I get this DOP-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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