PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
A company runs a production EC2 instance that experiences intermittent connectivity issues. The instance is part of an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer. Which step should be taken FIRST to diagnose the issue?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates often jump to reactive actions like terminating the instance or modifying security groups, failing to recognize that CloudWatch metrics provide the non-invasive, systematic starting point for diagnosing intermittent issues in an Auto Scaling group behind an ALB.
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
✓
Review CloudWatch metrics for the instance and the ALB target group
Reviewing CloudWatch metrics for the instance and the ALB target group is the correct first step because it provides immediate visibility into the root cause of intermittent connectivity issues. Metrics such as TargetResponseTime, RequestCount, and HealthyHostCount can reveal whether the problem is due to high latency, request failures, or the instance being marked unhealthy by the ALB health checks. This data-driven approach avoids unnecessary changes and aligns with the AWS Well-Architected Framework's principle of observability.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Modify the security group to allow all traffic temporarily
Why it's wrong here
Opening security groups blindly reduces security and does not diagnose the issue.
- ✓
Review CloudWatch metrics for the instance and the ALB target group
Why this is correct
CloudWatch metrics provide baseline data for troubleshooting connectivity issues.
- ✗
Terminate the instance and let Auto Scaling launch a new one
Why it's wrong here
Terminating without investigation does not identify root cause.
- ✗
Attach an additional Elastic Network Interface (ENI) to the instance
Why it's wrong here
Adding an ENI does not diagnose intermittent connectivity and may complicate the setup.
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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.