- A
Use Auto Scaling groups to automatically replace unhealthy instances.
Auto Scaling helps maintain desired capacity.
- B
Deploy application across multiple Availability Zones.
Increases availability by distributing across AZs.
- C
Manually create EBS snapshots every day.
Why wrong: Manual snapshots are not automated and do not provide high availability.
- D
Store data in a single Amazon S3 bucket in one Region.
Why wrong: Single Region may not be fault-tolerant.
- E
Use a single large EC2 instance to simplify management.
Why wrong: Single instance is a single point of failure.
Question 668 of 1,746
SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
This SAP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of design for new solutions. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company is designing a new application on AWS that requires a highly available and fault-tolerant architecture. Which TWO design principles should they follow?
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
✓
Use Auto Scaling groups to automatically replace unhealthy instances.
Option A is correct because Auto Scaling groups can automatically replace unhealthy EC2 instances by performing health checks and launching new instances to maintain desired capacity, which is a core principle of fault-tolerant design. Option B is correct because deploying across multiple Availability Zones ensures that if one AZ fails, the application continues to operate from another AZ, providing high availability and fault tolerance.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
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 Auto Scaling groups to automatically replace unhealthy instances.
Why this is correct
Auto Scaling helps maintain desired capacity.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✓
Deploy application across multiple Availability Zones.
Why this is correct
Increases availability by distributing across AZs.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Manually create EBS snapshots every day.
Why it's wrong here
Manual snapshots are not automated and do not provide high availability.
- ✗
Store data in a single Amazon S3 bucket in one Region.
Why it's wrong here
Single Region may not be fault-tolerant.
- ✗
Use a single large EC2 instance to simplify management.
Why it's wrong here
Single instance is a single point of failure.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse data backup strategies (like EBS snapshots) with high availability design, or they mistakenly believe that a single large instance or a single-region storage approach is sufficient for fault tolerance, ignoring the need for redundancy and automated recovery.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Auto Scaling groups use EC2 health checks and CloudWatch alarms to detect instance failure and automatically launch replacement instances, integrating with Elastic Load Balancing to distribute traffic only to healthy instances. Deploying across multiple Availability Zones leverages AWS's physically isolated infrastructure within a Region, with each AZ having independent power, cooling, and networking, ensuring that a failure in one AZ does not impact others. The combination of these principles forms the foundation of a resilient architecture that can withstand both instance-level and AZ-level failures.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
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Design for New Solutions — study guide chapter
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SAP-C02 question test?
Design for New Solutions — This question tests Design for New Solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Use Auto Scaling groups to automatically replace unhealthy instances. — Option A is correct because Auto Scaling groups can automatically replace unhealthy EC2 instances by performing health checks and launching new instances to maintain desired capacity, which is a core principle of fault-tolerant design. Option B is correct because deploying across multiple Availability Zones ensures that if one AZ fails, the application continues to operate from another AZ, providing high availability and fault tolerance.
What should I do if I get this SAP-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026
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.
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