SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a new application that will run on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application must be highly available and fault-tolerant across multiple Availability Zones. Which TWO actions should be taken to achieve this? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to think a single AZ with Auto Scaling is sufficient for high availability, but true fault tolerance requires distributing resources across multiple AZs to survive an AZ-level failure.
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
✓
Launch EC2 instances in at least two Availability Zones.
Launching EC2 instances in at least two Availability Zones (AZs) ensures that if one AZ fails, the application continues to run from the other AZ, providing fault tolerance and high availability. Option D is correct because configuring the ALB to be internet-facing and registering instances from multiple AZs allows the ALB to distribute incoming traffic across healthy instances in different AZs, automatically rerouting traffic if an AZ becomes impaired.
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 an Auto Scaling group to launch instances only in one Availability Zone.
Why it's wrong here
Auto Scaling should span multiple AZs for high availability.
- ✗
Use a Network Load Balancer instead of ALB for better performance.
Why it's wrong here
NLB is for TCP/UDP; ALB is appropriate for HTTP applications.
- ✓
Launch EC2 instances in at least two Availability Zones.
Why this is correct
Multiple AZs provide fault tolerance if one AZ fails.
- ✓
Configure the ALB to be internet-facing and register instances from multiple AZs.
Why this is correct
ALB distributes traffic across healthy instances in multiple AZs.
- ✗
Launch all EC2 instances in a single Availability Zone for low latency.
Why it's wrong here
Single AZ is not fault-tolerant.
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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on SAP-C02
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company is designing a new web application that will run on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. The application must be highly available across multiple Availability Zones. Which TWO actions should the architect take? (Choose TWO.)
easy- A.Launch all EC2 instances in a single Availability Zone.
- ✓ B.Configure the ALB as internet-facing and attach it to multiple Availability Zones.
- ✓ C.Launch EC2 instances in at least two Availability Zones.
- D.Use a Network Load Balancer instead of an Application Load Balancer.
- E.Assign Elastic IP addresses to each EC2 instance.
Why B: An internet-facing Application Load Balancer (ALB) must be attached to multiple Availability Zones (AZs) to provide high availability and fault tolerance. If the ALB is configured in only one AZ, a failure in that AZ would render the application unreachable. Option C is correct because EC2 instances must be launched in at least two AZs to serve as healthy targets for the ALB, ensuring that traffic can be routed to instances in another AZ if one AZ fails.
JA
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.