DOP-C02 Incident and Event Response Practice Question

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✗

  The launch template has insufficient IAM permissions to create instances.

  Why it's wrong here

  Insufficient IAM permissions in the launch template would cause the RunInstances API call to be rejected with an 'UnauthorizedOperation' or 'AccessDenied' error, not a quota-based message. The instance would never be created because the call fails at the authorization layer, and the Auto Scaling activity history would show an IAM failure reason with a CloudTrail entry. Since the error described in the scenario is explicitly a quota for running instances being exceeded, permissions issues are ruled out.

• ✓

  The account has reached the EC2 instance limit for the selected instance type in the region.

  Why this is correct

  The account has reached the EC2 instance limit for the selected instance type in the region, which is the only option that matches the error 'You have requested more instances than your current EC2 instance limit allows'. Auto Scaling attempts to call RunInstances, but EC2 rejects it with an InstanceLimitExceeded error, causing the scaling activity to fail. This is a service quota that applies per instance type per region, and the fix is to request a quota increase via the Service Quotas console.

• ✗

  The VPC subnet does not have enough available IP addresses.

  Why it's wrong here

  If the VPC subnet had no available IP addresses, the error would be 'Insufficient IP addresses available in subnet' with an InsufficientFreeAddressesInSubnet code, which occurs during the network interface allocation phase. This is a different failure mode than a quota exceeded error; the instance launch fails because the subnet's CIDR is exhausted, not because of account-wide EC2 limits. The scenario explicitly mentions a quota for running instances, so this option is incorrect.

• ✗

  There is an instance that is not passing health checks, preventing new instances.

  Why it's wrong here

  An instance failing health checks would trigger Auto Scaling to terminate the unhealthy instance and replace it, not block the launch of new instances. The health check failure would cause a lifecycle action and replacement, and any failure to launch a replacement would be due to other constraints like instance limits or network issues. The error message would reflect the underlying launch failure (e.g., quota), not the health status itself, so this option does not explain the quota error.

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