- A
Use an Application Load Balancer (ALB) that spans both Availability Zones with health checks enabled.
The ALB distributes incoming traffic across instances in multiple AZs. With health checks, it detects failures and routes traffic only to healthy instances. Combined with Auto Scaling across AZs, this provides zone-failure tolerance.
- B
Enable termination protection on all Amazon EC2 instances.
Why wrong: Termination protection prevents an instance from being accidentally terminated. It does not help if the entire Availability Zone fails, because the instance becomes unreachable anyway.
- C
Place the Amazon EC2 instances in a cluster placement group.
Why wrong: A cluster placement group places instances in a single Availability Zone to maximize network performance. This reduces fault tolerance, as a single AZ failure would affect all instances.
- D
Associate an Elastic IP address with the primary instance.
Why wrong: An Elastic IP is a static public IP address. It does not provide automatic failover; you would need to manually remap it. It is not a solution for multi-AZ high availability.
SOA-C02 Reliability and Business Continuity Practice Question
This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of reliability and business continuity. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. A key principle to apply: aLBs distribute traffic across multiple Availability Zones.. 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.
A company runs a stateless web application on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group across two Availability Zones. The SysOps administrator needs to ensure that the application can tolerate a failure of an entire Availability Zone. Which configuration is required?
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
Use an Application Load Balancer (ALB) that spans both Availability Zones with health checks enabled.
An Application Load Balancer (ALB) that spans both Availability Zones with health checks enabled distributes incoming traffic across EC2 instances in multiple AZs. If an entire AZ fails, the ALB automatically routes traffic only to healthy instances in the remaining AZ, ensuring the stateless web application remains available. Health checks detect instance or AZ failure and remove unhealthy targets from the load balancer's target group, which is essential for fault tolerance.
Key principle: ALBs distribute traffic across multiple Availability Zones.
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 an Application Load Balancer (ALB) that spans both Availability Zones with health checks enabled.
Why this is correct
The ALB distributes incoming traffic across instances in multiple AZs. With health checks, it detects failures and routes traffic only to healthy instances. Combined with Auto Scaling across AZs, this provides zone-failure tolerance.
Related concept
ALBs distribute traffic across multiple Availability Zones.
- ✗
Enable termination protection on all Amazon EC2 instances.
Why it's wrong here
Termination protection prevents an instance from being accidentally terminated. It does not help if the entire Availability Zone fails, because the instance becomes unreachable anyway.
- ✗
Place the Amazon EC2 instances in a cluster placement group.
Why it's wrong here
A cluster placement group places instances in a single Availability Zone to maximize network performance. This reduces fault tolerance, as a single AZ failure would affect all instances.
- ✗
Associate an Elastic IP address with the primary instance.
Why it's wrong here
An Elastic IP is a static public IP address. It does not provide automatic failover; you would need to manually remap it. It is not a solution for multi-AZ high availability.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse high availability with data durability or instance protection, leading them to choose termination protection or Elastic IPs, when the core requirement is automatic traffic rerouting across AZs, which only a load balancer with health checks can provide.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, the ALB uses a target group with health checks that send HTTP/HTTPS requests to each instance's health check endpoint (e.g., /health). If an entire AZ becomes unavailable, the ALB's cross-zone load balancing feature (enabled by default) ensures traffic is distributed only to healthy instances in the surviving AZ. The ALB's DNS name resolves to multiple IP addresses representing the load balancer nodes in each AZ, so even if one AZ fails, DNS continues to resolve to the healthy nodes.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- ALBs distribute traffic across multiple Availability Zones.
- ALB health checks automatically detect and route around unhealthy instances or AZs.
- Stateless applications are ideal for multi-AZ deployments with ALBs.
- ALBs operate at Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) and support advanced routing features.
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
ALBs distribute traffic across multiple Availability Zones.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Review aLBs distribute traffic across multiple Availability Zones., then practise related SOA-C02 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SOA-C02 question test?
Reliability and Business Continuity — This question tests Reliability and Business Continuity — ALBs distribute traffic across multiple Availability Zones..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Use an Application Load Balancer (ALB) that spans both Availability Zones with health checks enabled. — An Application Load Balancer (ALB) that spans both Availability Zones with health checks enabled distributes incoming traffic across EC2 instances in multiple AZs. If an entire AZ fails, the ALB automatically routes traffic only to healthy instances in the remaining AZ, ensuring the stateless web application remains available. Health checks detect instance or AZ failure and remove unhealthy targets from the load balancer's target group, which is essential for fault tolerance.
What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?
Review aLBs distribute traffic across multiple Availability Zones., then practise related SOA-C02 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.
What is the key concept behind this question?
ALBs distribute traffic across multiple Availability Zones.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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