Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company runs an application across multiple Availability Zones. The application servers are in private subnets and need outbound internet access to download software updates and patches. The SysOps administrator needs a highly available, fully managed solution to provide this outbound connectivity. Which solution should be used?
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
Distractor review
Deploy a NAT instance in each private subnet
NAT instances are self-managed Amazon EC2 instances that can provide outbound internet connectivity. They are not fully managed and require configuration of routing, health checks, and failover. This increases operational overhead.
B
Distractor review
Deploy a single NAT Gateway in one public subnet
A single NAT Gateway provides outbound connectivity for instances in its Availability Zone. If that AZ fails, all private subnets in other AZs would lose internet access. This is not highly available.
C
Best answer
Deploy a NAT Gateway in each public subnet
By deploying a NAT Gateway in each Availability Zone's public subnet and configuring private subnets to use the NAT Gateway in the same AZ, the solution is both fully managed and highly available. If one AZ fails, the other AZ's NAT Gateway continues to provide internet access.
D
Distractor review
Attach an Internet Gateway directly to the private subnets
An Internet Gateway cannot be attached directly to a private subnet. Private subnets have no direct route to the internet. An Internet Gateway is associated with the VPC and must be used in public subnets.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: usable hosts are not the same as total addresses
Subnetting questions often tempt you into counting all addresses. In normal IPv4 subnets, the network and broadcast addresses are not usable host addresses.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
Subnetting questions test whether you can identify the network, broadcast address, usable range, mask and correct subnet. Slow down enough to calculate the block size correctly.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- CIDR notation defines the prefix length.
- Block size helps identify subnet boundaries.
- Network and broadcast addresses are not usable hosts in normal IPv4 subnets.
- The required host count determines the smallest suitable subnet.
TExam Day Tips
- Write the block size before choosing the subnet.
- Check whether the question asks for hosts, subnets or a specific address range.
- Do not confuse /24, /25, /26 and /27 host counts.
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?
CIDR notation defines the prefix length.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Deploy a NAT Gateway in each public subnet — A NAT Gateway is a highly available (within an Availability Zone) and fully managed AWS service that enables instances in a private subnet to connect to the internet or other AWS services, while preventing the internet from initiating connections with those instances. To achieve high availability across multiple AZs, you should deploy one NAT Gateway in each AZ's public subnet and route traffic from each private subnet to the NAT Gateway in the same AZ. NAT instances are not managed and require manual failover. An Internet Gateway directly attached to private subnets does not provide outbound-only connectivity. A VPC peering solution would introduce complexity and cost without solving the outbound requirement directly.
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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