SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company has a fleet of EC2 instances that process data from an SQS queue. The instances are part of an Auto Scaling group. The team notices that the queue depth is growing, but the Auto Scaling group is not scaling out quickly enough. Which THREE actions should the team take to improve the scaling responsiveness? (Choose three.)
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
✓
Use a custom CloudWatch metric for the SQS queue depth to drive scaling.
Using a custom CloudWatch metric for SQS queue depth enables scaling based on actual workload, providing more responsive scaling than the default CPU or network metrics. Option C: Reducing the cooldown period allows the Auto Scaling group to launch instances more quickly after a scaling activity, improving responsiveness. Option D: Step scaling policies adjust capacity incrementally based on the size of the alarm breach, allowing more aggressive scaling when queue depth is high. Options B and E are incorrect: Decreasing warm-up time is not a supported CloudWatch feature, and increasing instance size does not improve scaling speed but rather increases capacity per instance.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Use a custom CloudWatch metric for the SQS queue depth to drive scaling.
Why this is correct
Custom metrics can trigger scaling based on actual queue length.
- ✗
Decrease the AWS CloudWatch metric warm-up time.
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch metrics do not have a warm-up time setting.
- ✓
Reduce the Auto Scaling group cooldown period.
Why this is correct
Shorter cooldown allows faster subsequent scaling actions.
- ✓
Use a step scaling policy instead of a simple scaling policy.
Why this is correct
Step scaling can adjust capacity more aggressively based on the magnitude of the metric.
- ✗
Increase the instance size in the launch template.
Why it's wrong here
Larger instances do not scale faster.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SAP-C02 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 SAP-C02 exam.