SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company runs a critical application on EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. They want to be notified immediately if any instance fails a status check. What is the simplest solution?
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
✓
Create a CloudWatch alarm on the StatusCheckFailed metric with an SNS action.
CloudWatch can monitor the EC2 StatusCheckFailed metric and trigger an SNS notification when an instance fails a status check. This is the simplest solution because it uses built-in metrics and requires no custom scripting. Option A uses ELB health checks which monitor load balancer target health, not instance status checks. Option B uses Systems Manager Automation which is not real-time. Option D uses CloudTrail which logs API calls, not status checks.
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 ELB health check and monitor the unhealthy host count.
Why it's wrong here
ELB health checks are for load balancing, but not all instances may be behind an ELB.
- ✗
Use AWS Systems Manager Automation to check instance status periodically.
Why it's wrong here
SSM Automation is not designed for real-time notifications.
- ✓
Create a CloudWatch alarm on the StatusCheckFailed metric with an SNS action.
Why this is correct
StatusCheckFailed metric is available and can trigger alarms.
- ✗
Enable AWS CloudTrail and create a metric filter for EC2 instance failures.
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail logs API calls, not instance status checks.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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