ANS-C01 Network Design Practice Question
A company has deployed a web application using an Application Load Balancer (ALB) in front of EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. The application experiences intermittent high latency. The network team suspects that the ALB is being overwhelmed by traffic. Which metrics should be analyzed in Amazon CloudWatch to determine if the ALB is the bottleneck?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse metrics that show traffic or backend performance (like RequestCount or TargetResponseTime) with metrics that specifically measure ALB internal congestion, leading them to overlook SurgeQueueLength and SpilloverCount.
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
✓
SurgeQueueLength and SpilloverCount
SurgeQueueLength and SpilloverCount are the correct metrics to analyze because they directly indicate whether the ALB is overwhelmed. SurgeQueueLength measures the number of requests waiting to be routed to a target, and SpilloverCount tracks requests that were rejected because the queue was full. If these metrics are consistently high or non-zero, the ALB is the bottleneck, as it cannot keep up with incoming traffic.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
ActiveConnectionCount and NewConnectionCount
Why it's wrong here
These show connection counts but do not indicate if the ALB is overwhelmed.
- ✓
SurgeQueueLength and SpilloverCount
Why this is correct
SurgeQueueLength shows pending requests, and SpilloverCount shows dropped requests when the ALB is overloaded.
- ✗
RequestCount and TargetResponseTime
Why it's wrong here
These metrics indicate the number of requests and backend response times, not whether the ALB is overwhelmed.
- ✗
HealthyHostCount and UnhealthyHostCount
Why it's wrong here
These indicate the health of target instances, not the ALB's capacity.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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