SOA-C02 Cost and Performance Optimization Practice Question
A company uses Amazon CloudFront to distribute content globally. The SysOps administrator notices that the origin load is high and the cache hit ratio is low. What should the administrator do to improve the cache hit ratio and reduce origin load?
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
✓
Increase the minimum, maximum, and default TTL values for the cache behavior.
Increasing the minimum, maximum, and default TTL values ensures that objects are cached for longer periods, which increases the likelihood of cache hits and reduces the load on the origin server. Option A (changing origin protocol policy to HTTPS only) does not affect caching behavior. Option B (adding an additional origin server) distributes load but does not directly improve cache hit ratio. Option C (enabling compression) reduces the size of transferred data but does not increase cache hits; it can even reduce caching efficiency if not configured properly.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Change the origin protocol policy to HTTPS only.
Why it's wrong here
Modifying the origin protocol policy to HTTPS only controls how CloudFront connects to the origin server, but it does not affect how long objects are stored at edge locations. Cache hit ratio depends on TTLs and how often the same objects are requested, not on the transport protocol used for origin fetches. HTTPS-only is a security hardening step and has no direct impact on caching effectiveness.
- ✗
Add an additional origin server.
Why it's wrong here
Adding an additional origin server may improve availability or distribute load, but it does not change CloudFront's cache retention behavior. The cache hit ratio is determined by TTL values and request patterns, not by the number of origins configured. In fact, if the new origin is used for the same paths, it could even create inconsistent cache states if object versions differ, but in no case does it increase the likelihood of a cache hit.
- ✗
Enable compression for the content.
Why it's wrong here
Enabling compression for content reduces the number of bytes transferred from origin to edge and from edge to viewer, which cuts bandwidth costs and latency. However, compression does not influence how long an object is cached or how many requests can be served from CloudFront's edge caches. A compressed response is still a cacheable object; the cache hit ratio remains unchanged by compression alone.
- ✓
Increase the minimum, maximum, and default TTL values for the cache behavior.
Why this is correct
Increasing the minimum, maximum, and default TTL values instructs CloudFront to retain objects at edge locations for a longer period, so more requests are satisfied directly from the cache rather than going back to the origin. Longer TTLs mean that the same content remains fresh in the cache, directly increasing the cache hit ratio for popular objects. This is the appropriate way to improve cache efficiency, though you should balance longer TTLs against the need to serve updated content.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SOA-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the SOA-C02 exam.