Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company runs an e-commerce application on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Auto Scaling group. The application has a predictable baseline load from 8 AM to 8 PM daily and low load overnight. The SysOps administrator wants to optimize costs while ensuring sufficient capacity for the baseline load. Which purchasing option and scaling strategy 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
Distractor review
Use On-Demand instances for the baseline and Spot Instances for any additional capacity.
On-Demand is more expensive than Reserved Instances for predictable baseline. Spot Instances can be reclaimed, so they are not reliable for guaranteed capacity.
B
Best answer
Use Reserved Instances for the predicted baseline and On-Demand for any unexpected spikes.
Reserved Instances offer up to 72% discount for consistent usage. On-Demand covers variable capacity needs, providing a cost-effective and flexible solution.
C
Distractor review
Use Dedicated Hosts for all instances to maximize cost savings.
Dedicated Hosts are typically more expensive than Reserved Instances and are only needed for specific licensing or compliance requirements. They do not optimize cost in this scenario.
D
Distractor review
Use Spot Instances for all instances to minimize costs.
Spot Instances can be interrupted with little notice, making them unsuitable for a predictable baseline workload that requires high availability.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- 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.
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?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Use Reserved Instances for the predicted baseline and On-Demand for any unexpected spikes. — Reserved Instances provide a significant discount for predictable, steady-state workloads. Using Reserved Instances for the baseline and On-Demand for any unexpected spikes balances cost savings with flexibility. Spot Instances (Option A) are not suitable for baseline because they can be interrupted. Dedicated Hosts (Option C) are expensive and unnecessary. Using only Spot Instances (Option D) risks application interruption.
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.
Discussion
Loading comments…
Sign in to join the discussion.