SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy infrastructure. The operations team wants to automatically roll back a stack update if it fails, and receive a notification. What should be configured to meet these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates may overcomplicate the solution by adding unnecessary services like Lambda or Config, overlooking CloudFormation's native rollback and notification capabilities that directly satisfy the requirements.
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
✓
Enable rollback on failure in the CloudFormation stack and configure an SNS notification topic.
CloudFormation natively supports automatic rollback on stack update failure via the 'Rollback on failure' setting. By configuring an SNS notification topic on the stack, the operations team receives alerts when a rollback occurs, meeting both requirements without additional custom logic.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use AWS CloudTrail to monitor the UpdateStack API call and trigger a rollback via a Lambda function.
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail records the UpdateStack API call after the fact; a Lambda reacting to that event cannot restore the stack to its prior template state, and no notification is delivered by the rollback itself. CloudTrail is tempting because it captures API activity, which suits auditing and security investigation rather than stack recovery.
- ✗
Use AWS Config rules to detect stack failure and revert changes.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config evaluates resource compliance against rules and can auto-remediate drift, but it does not revert a CloudFormation stack update or restore the previous template state. It is tempting because Config detects non-compliant resources, which suits ongoing compliance monitoring rather than transactional stack rollback.
- ✓
Enable rollback on failure in the CloudFormation stack and configure an SNS notification topic.
Why this is correct
CloudFormation's rollback-on-failure setting automatically reverts the stack to its last known stable state when an update fails, satisfying the automatic rollback requirement. Pairing it with an Amazon SNS topic delivers the failure notification. Both constraints in the stem are met natively, without custom scripting or external orchestration.
- ✗
Create a custom resource in the CloudFormation template that performs rollback.
Why it's wrong here
Custom resources run Lambda or SNS logic during stack operations; they cannot instruct CloudFormation to revert a failed update. Rollback triggers and failure options are stack-level settings. Custom resources are tempting because they extend templates with bespoke automation, which is correct when provisioning resources CloudFormation lacks native support for.
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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.