SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company runs a stateless web application on EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. The application experiences high latency during peak hours. The operations team suspects that the instances are overloaded. Which TWO actions should the team take to improve performance and scalability? (Choose two.)
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 an Application Load Balancer in front of the Auto Scaling group.
An Application Load Balancer distributes incoming traffic across multiple EC2 instances, reducing load on individual instances and improving scalability. Option D is correct because launching instances in multiple Availability Zones increases fault tolerance and allows the Auto Scaling group to scale across zones, improving availability and performance during peak hours. Option A is incorrect because increasing desired capacity to a fixed value does not adapt to variable demand and may lead to overprovisioning. Option C is incorrect because changing the AMI does not address the root cause of overload; performance improvements from AMI changes are negligible compared to scaling. Option E is incorrect because increasing instance size (vertical scaling) has limits and does not provide the elasticity and cost-efficiency of horizontal scaling.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the Auto Scaling group's desired capacity to a higher fixed value.
Why it's wrong here
Fixed capacity may not adapt to demand; without a load balancer, traffic may not be balanced.
- ✓
Configure an Application Load Balancer in front of the Auto Scaling group.
Why this is correct
ALB distributes traffic evenly across instances.
- ✗
Switch to a different Amazon Machine Image (AMI) with optimized performance.
Why it's wrong here
AMI change does not directly improve scalability.
- ✓
Launch the Auto Scaling group in multiple Availability Zones.
Why this is correct
Multi-AZ improves fault tolerance and scalability.
- ✗
Increase the instance size to a larger type.
Why it's wrong here
Vertical scaling may not address the root cause of overload.
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