Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
Exhibit
Application Load Balancer Subnets: subnet-a1 (us-east-1a), subnet-b1 (us-east-1b) Auto Scaling group VPCZoneIdentifier: subnet-a1 (us-east-1a) DesiredCapacity: 2 MinSize: 2 MaxSize: 4 CloudWatch HealthyHostCount: 2 HTTPCode_Target_5XX_Count: 0 Troubleshooting note A planned test that disabled us-east-1a caused the application to become unreachable.
Based on the exhibit, the web application must remain available even if one Availability Zone fails. What is the best change to improve resilience with the least redesign?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Distractor review
Increase DesiredCapacity to 4 while keeping all instances in subnet-a1.
This adds more instances, but they are still all in the same Availability Zone. If us-east-1a fails, every instance is lost together and the application still goes down. Capacity is not the same as fault isolation.
B
Best answer
Add subnet-b1 in a different Availability Zone to the Auto Scaling group.
This spreads EC2 instances across two Availability Zones, so the Auto Scaling group can continue serving traffic if one AZ becomes unavailable. Because the ALB is already deployed in both subnets, this is the smallest change that adds true zonal resilience to the compute tier.
C
Distractor review
Replace the Application Load Balancer with a Network Load Balancer.
A Network Load Balancer changes the load-balancing layer, but it does not fix the root problem: all instances are still in one AZ. If that AZ fails, there are still no healthy targets to receive traffic.
D
Distractor review
Enable EBS encryption on the launch template volumes.
EBS encryption improves data protection at rest, but it does not affect availability or failover behavior. The instances would still be concentrated in a single Availability Zone.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: usable hosts are not the same as total addresses
Subnetting questions often tempt you into counting all addresses. In normal IPv4 subnets, the network and broadcast addresses are not usable host addresses.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
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.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- CIDR notation defines the prefix length.
- Block size helps identify subnet boundaries.
- Network and broadcast addresses are not usable hosts in normal IPv4 subnets.
- The required host count determines the smallest suitable subnet.
TExam Day Tips
- Write the block size before choosing the subnet.
- Check whether the question asks for hosts, subnets or a specific address range.
- Do not confuse /24, /25, /26 and /27 host counts.
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More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
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Question 2
A team wants to run containerized services with AWS-managed orchestration and autoscaling. They do NOT require Kubernetes compatibility. Which AWS service choice is most appropriate to meet these goals?
Question 3
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Question 4
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Question 5
A team wants to delegate IAM management to developers, but must ensure developers can never grant themselves permissions beyond a specific limit. Which AWS mechanism best matches this requirement?
Question 6
A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a healthcare document service. The objects must never be publicly accessible, even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy. What should the architect configure?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
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: Add subnet-b1 in a different Availability Zone to the Auto Scaling group. — The best resilience improvement is to place the Auto Scaling group in multiple Availability Zones. The ALB is already multi-AZ, but the compute layer is not. Adding subnet-b1 lets the group launch instances in both AZs, so if us-east-1a is disabled the application can continue running on instances in us-east-1b. This is the least disruptive change that directly addresses zonal failure. Why others are wrong: Increasing instance count in one AZ only adds capacity, not redundancy. Replacing the ALB does not solve single-AZ compute placement. EBS encryption is a security control and has no impact on availability.
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.
Discussion
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