SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company uses AWS CloudFormation to manage infrastructure as code. They have a production stack that includes an EC2 instance, an RDS database, and an S3 bucket. Recently, an engineer manually terminated the EC2 instance from the console. The CloudFormation stack status shows UPDATE_ROLLBACK_FAILED. The company wants to recover the stack to a consistent state. What should they do?
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
✓
Manually recreate the EC2 instance with the same configuration, then tell CloudFormation to continue the update rollback.
When a stack update fails and rolls back, but the rollback itself fails due to a resource (like the EC2 instance) being manually terminated, the stack enters UPDATE_ROLLBACK_FAILED. The recommended recovery is to manually resolve the issue (recreate the EC2 instance with the same configuration) and then use the 'ContinueUpdateRollback' operation to finish the rollback to a consistent state. Option A correctly describes this process. Option B is incorrect because creating a change set does not address the failed rollback. Option C is incorrect because updating the stack without fixing the underlying drift may fail. Option D is incorrect because deleting and recreating the stack is more drastic and may not be necessary.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Manually recreate the EC2 instance with the same configuration, then tell CloudFormation to continue the update rollback.
Why this is correct
Fixing the drift allows CloudFormation to continue the rollback and reach a consistent state.
- ✗
Create a change set to update the stack to ignore the EC2 instance.
Why it's wrong here
Change sets are for planned updates, not for recovering from rollback failure.
- ✗
Update the stack with a new template that removes the EC2 instance.
Why it's wrong here
This may cause further errors as the resource is missing.
- ✗
Delete the stack and recreate it using a new template.
Why it's wrong here
This would delete all resources, including the RDS database and S3 bucket.
Visual reference
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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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.