SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a multi-tier web application on AWS. The web tier must automatically scale based on CPU utilization, and the application tier must process messages from an SQS queue. The application tier instances are frequently terminated and replaced due to scaling events. Where should the application logs be stored to ensure they are retained regardless of instance lifecycle?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse instance store (ephemeral) with EBS (persistent) storage, or assume that mounting S3 via NFS is a straightforward AWS feature, when in fact CloudWatch Logs is the only fully managed, instance-lifecycle-independent solution for log retention in this scenario.
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
✓
Configure the CloudWatch Logs agent on each instance to stream logs to CloudWatch Logs.
The CloudWatch Logs agent streams log data to Amazon CloudWatch Logs in real-time, decoupling log retention from the EC2 instance lifecycle. When instances are terminated, the logs are already persisted in CloudWatch Logs, ensuring they are retained regardless of scaling events.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Configure the CloudWatch Logs agent on each instance to stream logs to CloudWatch Logs.
Why this is correct
CloudWatch Logs persists logs independently of instance lifecycle and supports real-time streaming.
- ✗
Store logs on an EBS volume and take regular snapshots.
Why it's wrong here
Snapshots are periodic backups, not a solution for continuous log access; logs on the volume are lost if the instance is terminated.
- ✗
Write logs to the instance store volume of each EC2 instance.
Why it's wrong here
Instance store data is lost when the instance is stopped or terminated.
- ✗
Write logs to an Amazon S3 bucket mounted on each instance using NFS.
Why it's wrong here
S3 is object storage, not a file system; mounting via NFS is not a native feature and adds complexity.
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