A latency-sensitive telemetry service uses a custom TCP protocol on EC2 instances in private subnets. The service must preserve the client source IP for rate limiting, avoid HTTP header inspection, and keep per-request overhead as low as possible. Which changes should the team make? Select three.

Use an Application Load Balancer because path-based routing improves throughput for binary protocols.

Incorrect because ALB is an HTTP/HTTPS layer-7 load balancer. Its routing features do not help a custom TCP protocol and add unnecessary protocol overhead.

Expose the service through API Gateway because it supports raw TCP and UDP pass-through.

Incorrect because API Gateway is for API protocols such as HTTP and WebSocket, not raw TCP or UDP pass-through. It is not the right fit for a custom binary telemetry stream.

What does this SAA-C03 question test?

CIDR notation defines the prefix length.

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Use a Network Load Balancer in front of the service. — For a custom TCP workload, the correct architecture is an NLB with a TCP or TLS listener and instance or IP targets. That combination preserves source IP, avoids HTTP parsing overhead, and supports very low-latency transport. These are the AWS-native choices for a high-throughput binary protocol that needs direct network semantics rather than web routing features. An ALB adds unnecessary layer-7 behavior, and API Gateway does not provide raw TCP or UDP pass-through. Both choices solve different problems and do not meet the protocol or latency requirements here.

What should I do if I get this SAA-C03 question wrong?

Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.