SOA-C02 Networking and Content Delivery Practice Question
A company hosts a web application behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB) in us-east-1. Users in Europe report high latency. The SysOps administrator decides to use AWS Global Accelerator to improve performance by directing traffic to the closest edge location. However, the application logs require the original client IP addresses of users. The ALB currently provides the client IP via the X-Forwarded-For header, but the development team warns that Global Accelerator may change the source IP. Which configuration should the administrator choose to meet both performance and logging requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often assume Global Accelerator preserves the client IP like a transparent proxy, but in reality it terminates the TCP connection at the edge, so the source IP changes unless an NLB is used to preserve it.
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
✓
Place a Network Load Balancer (NLB) in front of the ALB, and configure Global Accelerator to point to the NLB. The NLB preserves the client IP, and the ALB can still see it in the X-Forwarded-For header.
Placing a Network Load Balancer (NLB) in front of the ALB allows Global Accelerator to terminate the TCP connection at the edge, then forward traffic to the NLB. The NLB preserves the original client IP address by default (since it operates at Layer 4 and does not terminate the connection), and the ALB can still read the client IP from the X-Forwarded-For header. This setup meets both the performance requirement (via Global Accelerator's edge routing) and the logging requirement (preserving the original client IP).
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Configure Global Accelerator with an endpoint group that points directly to the ALB. The ALB will continue to receive the original client IP in the X-Forwarded-For header.
Why it's wrong here
When Global Accelerator routes traffic to an ALB endpoint, it replaces the source IP with its own IP addresses. The original client IP is not preserved in the X-Forwarded-For header by default; the header will contain the Global Accelerator IPs.
- ✓
Place a Network Load Balancer (NLB) in front of the ALB, and configure Global Accelerator to point to the NLB. The NLB preserves the client IP, and the ALB can still see it in the X-Forwarded-For header.
Why this is correct
Global Accelerator preserves the client source IP when the endpoint is an NLB. The NLB passes traffic to the ALB, which can see the original client IP in the X-Forwarded-For header. This satisfies both performance (using Global Accelerator) and logging requirements.
- ✗
Enable Proxy Protocol v2 on the ALB to ensure client IP addresses are preserved through Global Accelerator.
Why it's wrong here
Proxy Protocol v2 is a feature supported by Network Load Balancers and TCP listeners, not by Application Load Balancers. ALBs rely exclusively on the X-Forwarded-For header to convey client IP information and do not have a mechanism to enable Proxy Protocol. Moreover, even if Proxy Protocol were enabled on an intermediary, Global Accelerator does not preserve the original client IP when its endpoint is an ALB; it replaces the source address with its own. Therefore, this option is invalid because it applies a capability to a service that does not support it and fails to address the actual limitation of Global Accelerator in this architecture.
- ✗
Use Amazon CloudFront instead of Global Accelerator and configure it to forward the client IP in a custom header.
Why it's wrong here
CloudFront, like Global Accelerator, does not preserve the original client IP when the origin is an ALB. It also adds a CDN layer which may not be necessary for this use case and introduces additional cost and complexity.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SOA-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 SOA-C02 exam.