SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company runs a critical application on a single Amazon EC2 instance in a development environment. The application writes data to an instance store volume. After a planned stop and start of the instance, the data on the instance store is lost. The company wants to prevent data loss in the future for this instance. What should a solutions architect recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that instance store data can be preserved through snapshots or termination protection, when in fact instance store is inherently non-persistent and cannot be snapshotted.
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
✓
Attach an additional EBS volume and move the application data to it.
Instance store volumes are ephemeral and lose data when the instance is stopped or terminated. To prevent data loss, the application must use persistent storage such as Amazon EBS. Attaching an EBS volume and moving data to it ensures durability across instance lifecycle events. Other options either provide no persistence or are technically infeasible.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable termination protection on the instance.
Why it's wrong here
Termination protection only prevents accidental termination of the instance; it does not preserve instance store data. Instance store volumes are ephemeral and their data is lost when the instance is stopped, terminated, or fails. This recommendation does not address the root cause and would not prevent data loss after a stop/start.
- ✓
Attach an additional EBS volume and move the application data to it.
Why this is correct
EBS volumes provide persistent, replicated storage that survives instance stop/start and can be reattached. Moving the application data from instance store to an EBS volume ensures durability and availability. This directly solves the data loss issue because EBS volumes are independent of the instance lifecycle.
- ✗
Enable detailed monitoring on the instance to detect data loss.
Why it's wrong here
Detailed monitoring provides metrics at 1-minute intervals but does not prevent data loss. It only helps with observability. The scenario requires a storage solution that persists data, not a monitoring tool. This option does not address the ephemeral nature of instance store.
- ✗
Create a snapshot of the instance store volume regularly.
Why it's wrong here
Instance store volumes cannot be snapshotted directly. Snapshots are only supported for EBS volumes. While you could theoretically copy data to EBS and then snapshot, that is not a direct solution. This option is invalid because AWS does not provide snapshot functionality for instance store volumes.
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
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.