SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a new application on AWS that requires a highly available and scalable web tier. The web servers must be stateless and scale automatically based on CPU utilization. Which TWO actions should the company take to meet these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse lifecycle hooks (Option C) as necessary for scaling or connection draining, when in fact the ALB handles connection draining automatically, and lifecycle hooks are an optional feature for custom workflows like patching or logging.
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 an Auto Scaling group with a launch template that includes a user data script to bootstrap the web server
A launch template with user data allows the Auto Scaling group to bootstrap web server software automatically when new instances launch, ensuring they are stateless and ready to serve traffic. Option B is correct because attaching an Application Load Balancer (ALB) distributes incoming traffic across the Auto Scaling group's instances, enabling horizontal scaling and high availability. Together, these actions support stateless web servers that scale based on CPU utilization via Auto Scaling policies.
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 an Auto Scaling group with a launch template that includes a user data script to bootstrap the web server
Why this is correct
Auto Scaling group provides automatic scaling and high availability.
- ✓
Attach the Auto Scaling group to an Application Load Balancer
Why this is correct
ALB distributes HTTP traffic and works with Auto Scaling.
- ✗
Configure lifecycle hooks in the Auto Scaling group to drain connections
Why it's wrong here
Lifecycle hooks are not needed for scaling based on CPU.
- ✗
Use a single large EC2 instance (e.g., c5n.18xlarge) to handle all traffic
Why it's wrong here
Single large instance is not highly available.
- ✗
Use a Network Load Balancer to distribute traffic to web servers
Why it's wrong here
NLB is for TCP/UDP; for HTTP traffic, ALB is better.
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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.