Question 1easymultiple choice
Full question →easymultiple choiceObjective-mapped
Exhibit
ALB target group: 2 healthy targets in us-east-1a only Auto Scaling group subnets: subnet-0a1b2c3d (us-east-1a) Desired capacity: 2 Unused subnet available: subnet-9f8e7d6c (us-east-1b) Health checks: passing Recent incident note: "If us-east-1a is unavailable, both app instances are lost."
Based on the exhibit, the web team wants the application to continue serving traffic if one Availability Zone fails. Which change best meets the requirement with the least operational overhead?
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 desired capacity to 3 in the same Availability Zone so one extra instance is always available.
Adding more instances in the same Availability Zone increases capacity, but it does not remove the single-AZ dependency. If us-east-1a fails, all instances in that zone are still lost, so the application remains unavailable.
B
Best answer
Add the unused subnet in us-east-1b to the Auto Scaling group so instances can launch in both AZs.
Placing the Auto Scaling group in at least two Availability Zones allows AWS to distribute and replace instances across zones. Because the Application Load Balancer can route only to healthy targets, adding the second subnet is the lowest-complexity change that gives the application resilience to a full AZ outage.
C
Distractor review
Replace the Application Load Balancer with a Network Load Balancer because it will automatically keep the app online.
Changing load balancer type does not solve the underlying issue. The application still needs healthy compute in more than one Availability Zone; otherwise, any full AZ outage removes all backend capacity.
D
Distractor review
Move the application to a larger EC2 instance type so a single server can handle the full workload.
A larger instance might handle more traffic, but it is still a single point of failure. This improves vertical capacity, not Availability Zone resilience.
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
A team needs to distribute TCP traffic (not HTTP) across multiple services. The services must see the original client source IP for auditing. Which AWS load balancer is the best fit?
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 the unused subnet in us-east-1b to the Auto Scaling group so instances can launch in both AZs. — The best answer is to add the unused subnet in us-east-1b to the Auto Scaling group so the application can run in at least two Availability Zones. The current design keeps all instances in us-east-1a, so an AZ outage would take down the entire backend. Spreading instances across AZs is the simplest and most operationally efficient fix because the ALB can keep sending requests only to healthy targets. Option A adds capacity only within the same AZ, so it does not help during an AZ outage. Option C changes the load balancer, but the compute layer is still single-AZ. Option D increases capacity on one server, but a single server remains a single point of failure.
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.
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