Question 1easymultiple choice
Full question →easymultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy a three-tier web application. The SysOps administrator wants to update a critical parameter, such as the instance type, and ensure that the change is applied without recreating the EC2 instance, if possible. Which CloudFormation stack update feature should be used to achieve this?
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
Change sets
Change sets allow you to preview how changes will affect your resources, including whether an update will cause replacement or in-place modification, giving you control to avoid unnecessary recreation.
B
Distractor review
Stack policy
Stack policies are used to prevent specific resources from being updated or deleted during a stack update; they do not help in previewing or avoiding recreation.
C
Distractor review
Update with drift detection
Drift detection is used to identify differences between the actual resource configuration and the expected CloudFormation template, not for previewing updates.
D
Distractor review
Directly edit the stack template and use the update stack action
While this is a valid way to update a stack, it does not provide a preview of the changes; you would need to use change sets to see the impact before applying.
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: Change sets — Change sets allow you to preview the effects of changes before applying them, including whether resources will be replaced or updated. This helps ensure that critical parameters like instance type are updated without unintended recreation. The other options do not provide the ability to preview the impact of changes before they are applied.
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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