Question 1hardmultiple choice
Full question →hardmultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company runs a multi-tier application that uses an Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL database. The SysOps administrator needs to monitor the database for performance anomalies, such as sudden spikes in connections or query latencies. The administrator wants to receive alerts when metrics deviate from their expected baseline. The solution must automatically adjust to changes in normal behavior over time, such as seasonal patterns. Which AWS service or feature should the administrator use?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Best answer
Configure Amazon CloudWatch Anomaly Detection on the relevant RDS metrics (e.g., DatabaseConnections, ReadLatency, WriteLatency) and set an alarm to notify when the metric breaches the anomaly band.
CloudWatch Anomaly Detection automatically builds a baseline and adapts to behavior changes over time, including seasonality. It can trigger alarms when metrics deviate significantly from predicted patterns.
B
Distractor review
Use Amazon RDS Performance Insights to analyze database load and set CloudWatch alarms on the DBLoad metric with static thresholds.
Performance Insights helps identify performance bottlenecks but does not provide automated baseline anomaly detection. With static thresholds, alarms must be manually adjusted and do not adapt to seasonal patterns.
C
Distractor review
Enable Amazon CloudWatch Metrics Explorer to create a dashboard that visualizes the metrics and manually review for anomalies.
Metrics Explorer creates interactive dashboards but does not provide automatic anomaly detection or alerting. It requires manual observation.
D
Distractor review
Use AWS X-Ray to trace database queries and set alarms on trace segment durations.
X-Ray is for tracing requests through distributed applications, not for monitoring database instance-level metrics. It does not provide anomaly detection on RDS metrics.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
Related practice questions
Related SOA-C02 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A company uses Amazon CloudFront to deliver content to a global audience. The origin is an Application Load Balancer in us-east-1. The SysOps administrator wants to reduce costs by minimizing the number of requests that reach the origin server. Which action should the administrator take?
Question 2
A company runs a batch processing application on Amazon EC2 that runs for 2 hours every night. The workload can tolerate interruptions. Which EC2 purchasing option provides the lowest cost for this use case?
Question 3
A SysOps administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an Amazon RDS DB instance and receive an alarm when CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used to create this alarm?
Question 4
A company runs a critical web application on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application uses session stickiness (sticky sessions) to maintain user sessions. The SysOps administrator notices that when instances are replaced during a scale-in or failure event, users lose their session data. The administrator needs to preserve session data across instance failures without losing stickiness benefits. What should the administrator do?
Question 5
A company runs a production web application on a single Amazon EC2 instance. The application experiences a predictable and steady workload 24/7. The SysOps administrator wants to minimize compute costs for this instance while ensuring it remains available during the expected workload. Which EC2 purchasing option should the administrator use?
Question 6
A company has a VPC with public and private subnets. The private subnets host application servers that need to make outbound HTTPS connections to the internet. The SysOps administrator must implement a solution that provides outbound internet connectivity while preventing inbound connections from the internet. Additionally, the solution must allow the company to control which domains the application servers can access. Which solution should the administrator implement?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SOA-C02 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Configure Amazon CloudWatch Anomaly Detection on the relevant RDS metrics (e.g., DatabaseConnections, ReadLatency, WriteLatency) and set an alarm to notify when the metric breaches the anomaly band. — CloudWatch Anomaly Detection uses machine learning to analyze historical metric patterns and create a band of expected values. It automatically adapts to trends and seasonal patterns. The administrator can create an alarm that triggers when the metric falls outside the anomaly band. RDS Performance Insights provides database performance analysis but not anomaly detection based on historical baselines. CloudWatch Metrics Explorer is for visualizing metrics. AWS X-Ray traces requests across services but is not for database metric anomaly detection.
What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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