This SAA-C03 practice question tests your understanding of design high-performing architectures. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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 retail API uses EC2 instances behind an ALB. CPU is consistently high during peak traffic, and request latency rises. What should be configured? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.
Auto Scaling policy based on an appropriate CloudWatch metric
Auto Scaling adds capacity when load increases and removes it when load falls.
S3 Object Lock
Why wrong: Object Lock controls retention, not EC2 compute capacity.
A VPC endpoint for CloudWatch only
Why wrong: A VPC endpoint changes network path, not instance capacity.
Disable health checks
Why wrong: Disabling health checks weakens availability and does not improve capacity.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Auto Scaling policy based on an appropriate CloudWatch metric
An Auto Scaling policy based on a CloudWatch metric like CPUUtilization or ALB TargetResponseTime can dynamically add or remove EC2 instances to match demand. This directly addresses the high CPU and rising latency during peak traffic without requiring custom scripts, as the scaling actions are fully managed by AWS. The ALB distributes traffic across the scaled instances, reducing per-instance load and improving response times.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Auto Scaling policy based on an appropriate CloudWatch metric
Why this is correct
Auto Scaling adds capacity when load increases and removes it when load falls.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
S3 Object Lock
Why it's wrong here
Object Lock controls retention, not EC2 compute capacity.
A VPC endpoint for CloudWatch only
Why it's wrong here
A VPC endpoint changes network path, not instance capacity.
Disable health checks
Why it's wrong here
Disabling health checks weakens availability and does not improve capacity.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates may confuse VPC endpoints (which enable private connectivity) with actual scaling mechanisms, or assume that disabling health checks is a quick fix for latency, when in fact it degrades reliability and does not address the underlying capacity issue.
Detailed technical explanation
Under the hood, Auto Scaling integrates with CloudWatch alarms that evaluate metrics like CPUUtilization (default 5-minute period, can be set to 1 minute with detailed monitoring). When the alarm threshold is breached, the Auto Scaling group executes a scaling policy (e.g., step scaling or target tracking) to launch new instances, which register with the ALB via target group health checks. A real-world scenario: a retail API during Black Friday sees CPU spike to 90%; a target tracking policy set to maintain 50% CPU automatically adds instances, preventing latency from exceeding 500ms.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
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FAQ
Design High-Performing Architectures — This question tests Design High-Performing Architectures — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Auto Scaling policy based on an appropriate CloudWatch metric — An Auto Scaling policy based on a CloudWatch metric like CPUUtilization or ALB TargetResponseTime can dynamically add or remove EC2 instances to match demand. This directly addresses the high CPU and rising latency during peak traffic without requiring custom scripts, as the scaling actions are fully managed by AWS. The ALB distributes traffic across the scaled instances, reducing per-instance load and improving response times.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
This SAA-C03 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 SAA-C03 exam.
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