SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a multi-tier web application that must be fault-tolerant and scalable. The application uses an Application Load Balancer (ALB) to distribute traffic to EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. The instances run a web server and a backend application. Which TWO steps should be taken to ensure the application can scale without data loss?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse instance store with EBS or assume that lifecycle hooks alone (Option C) prevent data loss, but lifecycle hooks only delay termination for cleanup—they do not preserve session data if the instance is ultimately terminated, making an external data store essential.
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
✓
Store session state in an external data store such as ElastiCache.
Storing session state in an external data store like ElastiCache decouples session data from individual EC2 instances. This ensures that if an instance is terminated or replaced during scaling events, the session data persists and can be served by any other instance in the Auto Scaling group, preventing data loss and maintaining user experience.
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 instance store volumes for temporary data.
Why it's wrong here
Instance store is ephemeral; data is lost on termination.
- ✓
Store session state in an external data store such as ElastiCache.
Why this is correct
Storing session state externally makes instances stateless, preventing data loss on scale-in.
- ✓
Implement lifecycle hooks to gracefully handle instance termination.
Why this is correct
Lifecycle hooks allow the instance to finish processing before termination.
- ✗
Use a custom CloudWatch metric to scale based on CPU utilization.
Why it's wrong here
Scaling metric does not prevent data loss.
- ✗
Use a fixed number of EC2 instances instead of Auto Scaling.
Why it's wrong here
Fixed number does not scale.
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