Quick Answer
The answer is Amazon CloudWatch Alarm and Amazon SNS. A CloudWatch Alarm monitors EC2 status check failures—both system and instance checks—and transitions to an ALARM state when a failure is detected, which then triggers an SNS topic to publish notifications to subscribers via email, SMS, or HTTP endpoints. On the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional DOP-C02 exam, this pairing tests your understanding of the monitoring and notification pipeline for EC2 health, often appearing as a scenario where you must select the two services that form a complete alerting solution. A common trap is choosing EC2 Auto Scaling or AWS Config instead, but remember that CloudWatch handles the monitoring logic, while SNS handles the delivery. Memory tip: think “Alarm triggers, SNS delivers”—the alarm watches the check, SNS spreads the word.
This DOP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of incident and event response. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 DevOps engineer needs to receive notifications when an EC2 instance's status check fails. Which TWO services should the engineer use? (Choose TWO.)
AWS Lambda
Why wrong: Lambda is not needed for simple notifications; SNS is sufficient.
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
SNS sends notifications when the alarm triggers.
AWS CloudTrail
Why wrong: CloudTrail does not monitor EC2 status checks.
AWS Config
Why wrong: Config does not monitor status checks.
Amazon CloudWatch Alarm
CloudWatch Alarm monitors the StatusCheckFailed metric.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
Amazon CloudWatch Alarms (Option E) can monitor EC2 instance status checks (both system and instance checks) and trigger an action when the alarm state changes to ALARM. Amazon SNS (Option B) is the service that delivers the notification by publishing messages to subscribers (e.g., email, SMS, HTTP endpoints) when the CloudWatch alarm triggers. Together, they provide a complete monitoring and notification pipeline for status check failures.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
AWS Lambda
Why it's wrong here
Lambda is not needed for simple notifications; SNS is sufficient.
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
Why this is correct
SNS sends notifications when the alarm triggers.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
AWS CloudTrail
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail does not monitor EC2 status checks.
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
Config does not monitor status checks.
Amazon CloudWatch Alarm
Why this is correct
CloudWatch Alarm monitors the StatusCheckFailed metric.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often select AWS Lambda or AWS Config because they associate them with automation or compliance, but the question explicitly asks for services to 'receive notifications' when a status check fails, which requires a notification delivery service (SNS) and a monitoring service (CloudWatch Alarm), not compute or configuration tracking.
Detailed technical explanation
EC2 status checks are performed automatically every minute by the EC2 system, with two types: system status checks (detecting loss of network connectivity, power loss, etc.) and instance status checks (detecting file system corruption, incorrect networking, etc.). A CloudWatch Alarm monitors the StatusCheckFailed metric (a composite of both checks) and can trigger an SNS topic directly via the alarm's 'actions' configuration, using the CloudWatch Metrics API to evaluate the metric over a specified period (e.g., 1 consecutive datapoint of 1). In a real-world scenario, you might combine this with Auto Scaling lifecycle hooks to automatically replace a failed instance, but the question specifically asks for notification delivery.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.
What to study next
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
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FAQ
Incident and Event Response — This question tests Incident and Event Response — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) — Amazon CloudWatch Alarms (Option E) can monitor EC2 instance status checks (both system and instance checks) and trigger an action when the alarm state changes to ALARM. Amazon SNS (Option B) is the service that delivers the notification by publishing messages to subscribers (e.g., email, SMS, HTTP endpoints) when the CloudWatch alarm triggers. Together, they provide a complete monitoring and notification pipeline for status check failures.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
This DOP-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DOP-C02 exam.
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