ANS-C01 Network Design Practice Question
A company is designing a network for a critical application that requires high availability across multiple Availability Zones. Which TWO design choices ensure that the application remains available if an entire AZ fails?
⚠ Common exam trap
The ANS-C01 exam often tests the misconception that a single load balancer or a single instance with an Elastic IP is sufficient for high availability, but the trap here is that true AZ-level fault tolerance requires redundant resources in at least two separate Availability Zones, not just a load balancer or an Elastic IP.
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
✓
Deploy resources in at least two Availability Zones.
Deploying resources in at least two Availability Zones (AZs) is a foundational design pattern for high availability. If an entire AZ fails, the application can continue serving traffic from the remaining AZ(s). This aligns with AWS best practices for fault isolation and is a core requirement for achieving an SLA-backed multi-AZ architecture.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Deploy resources in a single Availability Zone.
Why it's wrong here
Deploying resources in a single Availability Zone creates a single point of failure for the entire application stack; if that one AZ fails, all resources become unreachable, directly violating the requirement for high availability across multiple AZs. This option is tempting because it simplifies network design and reduces inter-AZ data transfer costs, and it would be the correct choice for a workload that does not require fault tolerance against an entire AZ outage, such as a development or test environment.
- ✓
Deploy resources in at least two Availability Zones.
Why this is correct
Multi-AZ deployment provides fault tolerance.
- ✗
Use a Network Load Balancer in a single AZ.
Why it's wrong here
NLB in a single AZ does not provide AZ failure protection.
- ✓
Use an Application Load Balancer that spans multiple AZs.
Why this is correct
ALB distributes traffic across multiple AZs.
- ✗
Use a single EC2 instance with an Elastic IP address.
Why it's wrong here
Single instance is a single point of failure.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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