SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company runs a web application on EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. Users report intermittent 503 errors. CloudWatch logs show the ALB's healthy host count occasionally drops to zero during traffic spikes. Which design change should a solutions architect implement to improve availability?
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
✓
Increase the size of the Auto Scaling group and adjust scaling policies.
Increasing the size of the Auto Scaling group and adjusting scaling policies ensures sufficient capacity during traffic spikes, preventing the healthy host count from dropping to zero. Option A is wrong because instance refresh is for rolling updates, not for handling spikes. Option C is wrong because Reserved Instances do not add on-demand capacity. Option D is wrong because a larger Network Load Balancer does not address the root cause of insufficient EC2 capacity.
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 EC2 instance refresh for the Auto Scaling group.
Why it's wrong here
Instance refresh updates instances but does not add capacity.
- ✓
Increase the size of the Auto Scaling group and adjust scaling policies.
Why this is correct
More instances and proper scaling prevent zero healthy hosts during spikes.
- ✗
Purchase Reserved Instances for the existing EC2 fleet.
Why it's wrong here
Reserved Instances provide cost savings but do not add scalability.
- ✗
Replace the ALB with a larger Network Load Balancer.
Why it's wrong here
The issue is capacity, not load balancer type.
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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.