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Network Design →mediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

ANS-C01 Network Design Practice Question

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 network for a critical application that requires high availability across two AWS Regions (us-east-1 and us-west-2). The application uses an Application Load Balancer (ALB) in each region, with Auto Scaling groups behind them. The database is an Amazon Aurora Global Database with a primary cluster in us-east-1 and a secondary cluster in us-west-2. The company wants to use Amazon Route 53 to route traffic to the closest healthy ALB. They also need to ensure that if the primary database fails over to the secondary region, the application can still write to the database with minimal latency. Additionally, the application must be able to read from the local database in each region for read-intensive workloads. The network team has designed the following: Route 53 with latency-based routing and health checks for the ALBs. The application instances in each region are configured to connect to the local Aurora cluster endpoint. For writes, they use the global writer endpoint. What is the MOST significant design flaw?

Clue words in this question

Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.

Clue: "primary"
Why it matters: Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.

A
The Auto Scaling groups are not configured with lifecycle hooks to drain connections during scale-in
Why wrong: This is important but not the most significant for high availability across regions.
B
The Route 53 health checks only monitor the ALB endpoint, not the overall application health including database connectivity
If the database fails in a region, the ALB might still be healthy, causing traffic to be sent to a region that cannot serve requests.
C
The application instances in us-west-2 experience high latency for write operations due to cross-region traffic to the primary database
Why wrong: This is a known trade-off, but not necessarily a design flaw as global database is designed for disaster recovery, not active-active writes.
D
The Aurora Global Database does not support cross-region replication for read replicas
Why wrong: Aurora Global Database supports cross-region replication for reads.

Full breakdown with real-world context →

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

✓

The Route 53 health checks only monitor the ALB endpoint, not the overall application health including database connectivity

The correct answer is B. The design flaw is that Route 53 health checks only monitor the ALB endpoint, not the overall application health including database connectivity. If the database in a region fails (e.g., due to a failure in the primary or secondary cluster), the ALB might still be healthy, and Route 53 would continue to route traffic to that region. However, the application instances would not be able to serve requests properly because they rely on the local database. A robust health check should include checking the application's ability to connect to the database and perform basic operations. This ensures that traffic is only routed to regions where the full application stack is healthy. Other options are less significant: A (lifecycle hooks) is a minor optimization, C (write latency) is inherent to the architecture and might be acceptable for critical writes, and D is false because Aurora Global Database does support cross-region replication.

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.

✗
The Auto Scaling groups are not configured with lifecycle hooks to drain connections during scale-in
Why it's wrong here
This is important but not the most significant for high availability across regions.
✓
The Route 53 health checks only monitor the ALB endpoint, not the overall application health including database connectivity
Why this is correct
If the database fails in a region, the ALB might still be healthy, causing traffic to be sent to a region that cannot serve requests.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "primary" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
The application instances in us-west-2 experience high latency for write operations due to cross-region traffic to the primary database
Why it's wrong here
This is a known trade-off, but not necessarily a design flaw as global database is designed for disaster recovery, not active-active writes.
✗
The Aurora Global Database does not support cross-region replication for read replicas
Why it's wrong here
Aurora Global Database supports cross-region replication for reads.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.

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.
Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.

TExam Day Tips

Underline the problem statement mentally.
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 ANS-C01 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.

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FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this ANS-C01 question test?

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: The Route 53 health checks only monitor the ALB endpoint, not the overall application health including database connectivity — The correct answer is B. The design flaw is that Route 53 health checks only monitor the ALB endpoint, not the overall application health including database connectivity. If the database in a region fails (e.g., due to a failure in the primary or secondary cluster), the ALB might still be healthy, and Route 53 would continue to route traffic to that region. However, the application instances would not be able to serve requests properly because they rely on the local database. A robust health check should include checking the application's ability to connect to the database and perform basic operations. This ensures that traffic is only routed to regions where the full application stack is healthy. Other options are less significant: A (lifecycle hooks) is a minor optimization, C (write latency) is inherent to the architecture and might be acceptable for critical writes, and D is false because Aurora Global Database does support cross-region replication.

What should I do if I get this ANS-C01 question wrong?

Are there clue words in this question I should notice?

Yes — watch for: "primary". Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.

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.