This PAS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of technology. 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 running SAP on AWS and wants to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) instance. They have two EC2 instances in different Availability Zones within a single AWS Region. Which AWS service should be used to automatically fail over the ASCS instance if the primary instance fails?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "primary"
Why it matters: Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.
Application Load Balancer (ALB)
Why wrong: ALB is for HTTP/HTTPS traffic; ASCS uses proprietary protocols.
AWS Auto Scaling
Why wrong: Auto Scaling is for scaling groups, not automatic failover of a single instance.
AWS CloudFormation
Why wrong: CloudFormation does not provide automatic failover.
Amazon Route 53
Route 53 health checks and failover routing can direct traffic to the healthy instance.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Amazon Route 53
Option C is correct: Amazon Route 53 with health checks and failover routing policy can redirect traffic to the secondary ASCS instance. Option A is wrong: ELB is not suitable for ASCS because ASCS uses non-HTTP ports. Option B is wrong: AWS Auto Scaling does not handle failover of stateful services. Option D is wrong: AWS CloudFormation is for provisioning, not automatic failover.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Application Load Balancer (ALB)
Why it's wrong here
ALB is for HTTP/HTTPS traffic; ASCS uses proprietary protocols.
AWS Auto Scaling
Why it's wrong here
Auto Scaling is for scaling groups, not automatic failover of a single instance.
AWS CloudFormation
Why it's wrong here
CloudFormation does not provide automatic failover.
Amazon Route 53
Why this is correct
Route 53 health checks and failover routing can direct traffic to the healthy instance.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "primary" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Detailed technical explanation
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
What to study next
Identify which PAS-C01 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
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FAQ
Technology — This question tests Technology — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Amazon Route 53 — Option C is correct: Amazon Route 53 with health checks and failover routing policy can redirect traffic to the secondary ASCS instance. Option A is wrong: ELB is not suitable for ASCS because ASCS uses non-HTTP ports. Option B is wrong: AWS Auto Scaling does not handle failover of stateful services. Option D is wrong: AWS CloudFormation is for provisioning, not automatic failover.
Identify which PAS-C01 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
Yes — watch for: "primary". Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 20, 2026
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.
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