Question 506 of 1,733
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PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question

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.

An SAP system on AWS needs to be highly available across two Availability Zones. The application tier runs on EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. The database tier uses an RDS Multi-AZ deployment. What additional step is REQUIRED to ensure complete high availability for the application tier?

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

Launch EC2 instances in at least two different Availability Zones.

For the application tier to be highly available across two Availability Zones, EC2 instances must be distributed across at least two AZs so that if one AZ fails, the Application Load Balancer can route traffic to instances in the other AZ. Option B directly addresses this requirement. Without instances in multiple AZs, the application tier remains a single point of failure, even if the ALB and RDS Multi-AZ are configured correctly.

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 a larger EC2 instance type.

    Why it's wrong here

    Does not improve availability.

  • Launch EC2 instances in at least two different Availability Zones.

    Why this is correct

    Ensures application survives AZ failure.

    Related concept

    Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

  • Enable EBS Multi-Attach for the root volumes.

    Why it's wrong here

    Not applicable for HA.

  • Configure an Auto Scaling group with a dynamic scaling policy.

    Why it's wrong here

    Scaling, not HA.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates often assume an Auto Scaling group (Option D) automatically provides high availability across AZs, but without explicitly configuring subnets in multiple AZs and a multi-AZ distribution strategy, the Auto Scaling group could launch all instances in a single AZ, leaving the application tier vulnerable.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Under the hood, the Application Load Balancer is regional and can route traffic to targets in multiple AZs, but it requires registered targets in each AZ to provide failover. The RDS Multi-AZ deployment automatically synchronously replicates data to a standby in a different AZ, but the application tier must independently be architected for multi-AZ resilience. In a real-world scenario, if EC2 instances are all in a single AZ and that AZ experiences an outage, the ALB will return 503 errors because no healthy targets remain, even though the database remains available in the other AZ.

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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FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this PAS-C01 question test?

Technology — This question tests Technology — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Launch EC2 instances in at least two different Availability Zones. — For the application tier to be highly available across two Availability Zones, EC2 instances must be distributed across at least two AZs so that if one AZ fails, the Application Load Balancer can route traffic to instances in the other AZ. Option B directly addresses this requirement. Without instances in multiple AZs, the application tier remains a single point of failure, even if the ALB and RDS Multi-AZ are configured correctly.

What should I do if I get this PAS-C01 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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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026

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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.