SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company runs a web application on Amazon ECS with Fargate launch type behind an Application Load Balancer. The application stores session state in a local file system on the container. Users report that they are frequently logged out and lose session data. What is the most likely cause?
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
✓
ECS tasks are being replaced by the service scheduler during deployments or health checks.
ECS tasks using Fargate are ephemeral; when the service scheduler replaces tasks during deployments or due to health check failures, any session data stored in the local file system is lost, causing users to be logged out. Option B is incorrect because security group misconfiguration would prevent traffic entirely, not cause intermittent session loss. Option C is incorrect because scaling out creates additional tasks but does not by itself cause existing tasks to lose their local data; the issue is replacement, not scaling. Option D is incorrect because sticky sessions only route a user to the same target, but if the target container is replaced, the local session data is still lost regardless of stickiness.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
ECS tasks are being replaced by the service scheduler during deployments or health checks.
Why this is correct
Fargate tasks are ephemeral; replacement causes loss of local session data.
- ✗
The security group for the ECS tasks is blocking inbound traffic from the ALB.
Why it's wrong here
This would cause connectivity issues, not session loss.
- ✗
The ECS service is configured to scale out, causing new tasks to be created without existing session data.
Why it's wrong here
Scaling out adds tasks, but existing tasks retain their data.
- ✗
The Application Load Balancer is not configured with sticky sessions.
Why it's wrong here
Sticky sessions would help if containers persist, but containers are being replaced.
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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.