This ANS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of network design. 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 company is designing a hybrid network architecture that connects an on-premises data center to AWS using AWS Direct Connect. The company requires high availability and uses BGP for dynamic routing. The on-premises router supports BGP multipath. Which configuration ensures the highest availability for the Direct Connect connection?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Provision two Direct Connect connections to two different Direct Connect locations and configure BGP multipath.
Option A is correct because provisioning two Direct Connect connections to two different Direct Connect locations eliminates single points of failure at the physical layer and the facility level. BGP multipath allows the on-premises router to load-balance traffic across both connections, maximizing availability by ensuring that if one connection or location fails, traffic continues over the other without relying on a slower failover mechanism like VPN.
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.
✓
Provision two Direct Connect connections to two different Direct Connect locations and configure BGP multipath.
Why this is correct
Physical diversity ensures high availability.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Provision a single Direct Connect connection and a Site-to-Site VPN as a backup.
Why it's wrong here
Backup VPN is good but not highest availability; direct connect redundancy is better.
✗
Provision a single Direct Connect connection with two virtual interfaces.
Why it's wrong here
Single point of failure at the physical layer.
✗
Provision a single Direct Connect connection with multiple VLANs.
Why it's wrong here
VLANs are logical; physical path is still a single point of failure.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse logical redundancy (multiple VLANs or virtual interfaces) with physical redundancy, assuming that multiple logical constructs on a single physical connection provide high availability, when in fact a single physical failure will take down all logical constructs.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
BGP multipath (e.g., 'maximum-paths 2' on Cisco IOS) allows the router to install multiple equal-cost BGP routes into the routing table, enabling active-active load balancing across two Direct Connect connections. Under the hood, BGP multipath requires that the paths have the same AS_PATH length, MED, local preference, and next-hop reachability; AWS Direct Connect virtual interfaces are configured with the same BGP attributes to meet these criteria, allowing simultaneous use of both connections. In a real-world scenario, if one Direct Connect location experiences a power outage or fiber cut, the BGP session on that connection drops, and the router automatically removes the failed path from the routing table, while the other connection continues to carry traffic without any manual intervention.
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.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Network Design — This question tests Network Design — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Provision two Direct Connect connections to two different Direct Connect locations and configure BGP multipath. — Option A is correct because provisioning two Direct Connect connections to two different Direct Connect locations eliminates single points of failure at the physical layer and the facility level. BGP multipath allows the on-premises router to load-balance traffic across both connections, maximizing availability by ensuring that if one connection or location fails, traffic continues over the other without relying on a slower failover mechanism like VPN.
What should I do if I get this ANS-C01 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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This ANS-C01 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 ANS-C01 exam.
Question Discussion
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