SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company is running a web application on AWS using an Application Load Balancer (ALB) in front of an Auto Scaling group of EC2 instances. The application experiences periodic traffic spikes that cause increased latency. The company wants to implement a solution to automatically adjust capacity in anticipation of traffic changes. What should a solutions architect do?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse reactive scaling policies (simple, step, or target tracking) with proactive predictive scaling, assuming that maintaining a target metric like CPU utilization is sufficient to handle anticipated spikes, but only predictive scaling uses historical patterns to act before the load increases.
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 a predictive scaling policy using historical traffic patterns.
Predictive scaling uses historical traffic patterns to forecast future demand and proactively adjust capacity before traffic spikes occur, which directly addresses the requirement to anticipate changes. This approach reduces latency by ensuring sufficient resources are available ahead of time, unlike reactive policies that only respond after utilization increases.
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 a simple scaling policy based on CPU utilization.
Why it's wrong here
Simple scaling is reactive and adds capacity after metrics exceed thresholds.
- ✗
Configure a scheduled scaling policy to add instances during known peak hours.
Why it's wrong here
Scheduled scaling requires manual setup and does not adapt to unexpected spikes.
- ✗
Configure a target tracking scaling policy based on average CPU utilization.
Why it's wrong here
Target tracking is also reactive, maintaining a target metric.
- ✓
Configure a predictive scaling policy using historical traffic patterns.
Why this is correct
Predictive scaling uses machine learning to forecast traffic and proactively scale.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,660 original SAP-C02 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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 deploying a web application that uses an Application Load Balancer and an Auto Scaling group of EC2 instances. The application must be able to handle sudden spikes in traffic. Which TWO actions should the Solutions Architect take to improve scalability and reduce latency? (Choose two.)
medium- ✓ A.Enable HTTP/2 on the Application Load Balancer.
- B.Increase the default cooldown period for the Auto Scaling group.
- C.Use larger EC2 instance types for the Auto Scaling group.
- ✓ D.Configure the Auto Scaling group to use a predictive scaling policy.
- E.Increase the health check interval on the Application Load Balancer.
Why A: Options A and D are correct. Option A: Enabling HTTP/2 on the ALB reduces latency through multiplexing and connection reuse. Option D: Using a predictive scaling policy helps prepare for traffic spikes by scaling based on forecasted demand. Option B is incorrect because increasing the cooldown period delays scaling response. Option C is incorrect because using larger instances is vertical scaling, which does not improve horizontal scalability and may increase cost. Option E is incorrect because increasing the health check interval delays detection of unhealthy instances.
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.