PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
A company is running a web application on EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The instances are in an Auto Scaling group with a dynamic scaling policy based on average CPU utilization. During a flash sale, the application experiences a sudden spike in traffic, but the Auto Scaling group does not scale out quickly enough, causing some requests to fail. Which solution would improve the scaling responsiveness?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates often focus on tuning cooldown periods or disabling scale-in, thinking these improve responsiveness, when the real issue is the inherent latency of reactive scaling during unpredictable spikes.
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
✓
Add a scheduled scaling action to increase capacity before the flash sale.
A scheduled scaling action proactively increases capacity before the flash sale, eliminating the lag inherent in dynamic scaling policies. Dynamic scaling reacts to metrics like average CPU utilization, which can take minutes to trigger and propagate, causing request failures during sudden spikes. By pre-scaling, the Auto Scaling group has sufficient instances ready to handle the traffic surge immediately.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the cooldown period for the dynamic scaling policy.
Why it's wrong here
Increasing cooldown delays scaling actions, making it worse.
- ✓
Add a scheduled scaling action to increase capacity before the flash sale.
Why this is correct
Scheduled scaling proactively adds capacity ahead of known traffic spikes.
- ✗
Decrease the cooldown period for the dynamic scaling policy.
Why it's wrong here
Decreasing cooldown helps react faster but does not proactively prepare for the spike.
- ✗
Disable scale-in to prevent the Auto Scaling group from terminating instances during the sale.
Why it's wrong here
Disabling scale-in does not help with scaling out more quickly.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PAS-C01 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 PAS-C01 exam.