This ANS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of network design. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 wants to improve the performance and availability of its application that is deployed on EC2 instances in a single Availability Zone. Which architecture should the company implement?
Add more subnets in the same Availability Zone
Why wrong: More subnets in one AZ do not improve availability.
Deploy EC2 instances in multiple Availability Zones
Multi-AZ deployment provides high availability.
Use larger EC2 instances
Why wrong: Larger instances do not provide fault tolerance.
Use Auto Scaling in the same Availability Zone
Why wrong: Auto Scaling in one AZ does not protect against AZ failure.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Deploy EC2 instances in multiple Availability Zones
Deploying instances across multiple Availability Zones improves availability. Option B is correct. Option A (larger instances) does not improve availability. Option C (Auto Scaling in one AZ) still has a single point of failure. Option D (more subnets in one AZ) does not help.
Key principle: Count usable hosts — not total addresses — and remember that the network and broadcast addresses are not available to hosts in standard IPv4 subnets.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Add more subnets in the same Availability Zone
Why it's wrong here
More subnets in one AZ do not improve availability.
Deploy EC2 instances in multiple Availability Zones
Why this is correct
Multi-AZ deployment provides high availability.
Related concept
CIDR notation defines the prefix length.
Use larger EC2 instances
Why it's wrong here
Larger instances do not provide fault tolerance.
Use Auto Scaling in the same Availability Zone
Why it's wrong here
Auto Scaling in one AZ does not protect against AZ failure.
Common exam traps
Subnetting questions often tempt you into counting all addresses. In normal IPv4 subnets, the network and broadcast addresses are not usable host addresses.
Detailed technical explanation
Subnetting questions test whether you can identify the network, broadcast address, usable range, mask and correct subnet. Slow down enough to calculate the block size correctly.
Key takeaway
Count usable hosts — not total addresses — and remember that the network and broadcast addresses are not available to hosts in standard IPv4 subnets.
Real-world example
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
Review block sizes, usable host formulas (2^n − 2), and how to find network and broadcast addresses for /24 through /30. Then practise related ANS-C01 subnetting questions on CIDR, address ranges, and subnet selection.
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FAQ
Network Design — This question tests Network Design — CIDR notation defines the prefix length..
The correct answer is: Deploy EC2 instances in multiple Availability Zones — Deploying instances across multiple Availability Zones improves availability. Option B is correct. Option A (larger instances) does not improve availability. Option C (Auto Scaling in one AZ) still has a single point of failure. Option D (more subnets in one AZ) does not help.
Review block sizes, usable host formulas (2^n − 2), and how to find network and broadcast addresses for /24 through /30. Then practise related ANS-C01 subnetting questions on CIDR, address ranges, and subnet selection.
CIDR notation defines the prefix length.
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Last reviewed: Jun 20, 2026
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