SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a web application that must handle sudden spikes in traffic. The application runs in a VPC and uses an Application Load Balancer (ALB) to distribute traffic to EC2 instances. The solution must be cost-effective for variable traffic patterns. Which scaling strategy should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse simple scaling with step adjustments as being more granular, but target tracking is actually more responsive and cost-effective for variable traffic because it continuously adjusts capacity based on a single target value rather than fixed thresholds.
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
✓
Target tracking scaling policy based on average CPU utilization
Target tracking scaling policy is the correct choice because it automatically adjusts the desired capacity of the Auto Scaling group to maintain a target metric (e.g., average CPU utilization at 50%) without requiring manual thresholds or step adjustments. This policy is ideal for variable traffic patterns as it dynamically scales in response to real-time demand, optimizing cost by adding or removing instances only as needed.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Simple scaling with step adjustments
Why it's wrong here
Less responsive than target tracking.
- ✓
Target tracking scaling policy based on average CPU utilization
Why this is correct
Automatically adjusts capacity to maintain a target metric, cost-effective.
- ✗
Scheduled scaling
Why it's wrong here
Works for predictable patterns, not sudden spikes.
- ✗
Manual scaling
Why it's wrong here
Requires human intervention, not suitable for sudden spikes.
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Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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