SOA-C02 Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation Practice Question

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 Amazon Inspector to automatically register instances with the target group.

  Why it's wrong here

  Amazon Inspector is an automated security assessment service that evaluates instances for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure; it has no mechanism to register EC2 instances or on-premises servers with an Elastic Load Balancing target group. Target group registration is a function of the Elastic Load Balancing service itself, often driven by Auto Scaling or orchestration services, not by security scanning tools. Therefore, using Inspector would not cause instances to receive CodeDeploy deployments through the load balancer.

• ✓

  Attach the target group to the Auto Scaling group.

  Why this is correct

  Attaching the target group to the Auto Scaling group is the AWS-recommended managed integration: when the Auto Scaling group launches new instances, it automatically registers them with the attached target group, and when instances are terminated, it deregisters them. This ensures that CodeDeploy, which can deploy to instances registered with a target group, has a current and accurate list of deployment targets without custom scripting. This approach is the correct answer because it leverages native AWS orchestration to keep target group membership synchronized with the Auto Scaling group's instance lifecycle.

• ✗

  Create a lifecycle hook in the Auto Scaling group to register instances with the target group.

  Why it's wrong here

  Lifecycle hooks are designed to pause an Auto Scaling group during instance launch or termination so you can perform custom actions, such as running a script, draining connections, or waiting for a health check, before the instance transitions to the InService state. They do not inherently register instances with a target group; registration is a separate API call (RegisterTargets) that you must implement in the hook's notification target, e.g., using Lambda or SSM Run Command. Using a lifecycle hook adds complexity and potential failure points, and it is not the managed automatic solution that attaching the target group provides.

• ✗

  Configure the Auto Scaling group to launch instances with a user data script that registers the instance with the target group.

  Why it's wrong here

  While a user data script could call the RegisterTargets API to add the instance to the target group, this approach is error-prone and not automatic from the load balancer or Auto Scaling perspective. The script runs only at initial launch, so it would not handle manual re-registration or instance replacement if the instance is later deregistered, and it requires proper IAM permissions and scripting logic for each AMI. In contrast, attaching the target group to the Auto Scaling group makes registration a native, declarative behavior, eliminating the need for custom bootstrap code and ensuring consistent registration actions during scale-out events.

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