The answer is that failing health checks on the ALBs are causing suboptimal routing. Global Accelerator relies on continuous health checks to determine endpoint availability; when an ALB in a user’s closest region fails these checks, the accelerator marks that endpoint as unhealthy and automatically diverts traffic to the next closest healthy region. This means users are routed to a geographically distant region even though a perfectly functional, closer region exists, directly explaining the reported performance degradation. On the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate SOA-C02 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of how Global Accelerator health check routing interacts with endpoint health—a common trap is assuming latency-based routing always picks the nearest region, forgetting that health status overrides proximity. Remember the mnemonic: “No check, no direct—failed health means a longer trek.”
SOA-C02 Networking and Content Delivery Practice Question
This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of networking and content delivery. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. 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 uses AWS Global Accelerator to improve the performance of a web application hosted in multiple AWS regions. The application uses an Application Load Balancer (ALB) in each region as the endpoint. Users report that traffic is not being routed to the closest region. What could be the cause?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The health checks for the ALBs are failing, so traffic is diverted to other regions.
Global Accelerator uses health checks to determine endpoint availability. If the health checks for an ALB in a user's closest region are failing, Global Accelerator will consider that endpoint unhealthy and route traffic to the next closest healthy region. This causes users to be directed to a region farther away, even though a closer region exists.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
The Global Accelerator is not configured with a custom routing accelerator.
Why it's wrong here
Custom routing is for specific use cases, not standard.
✗
The ALBs are not configured to allow cross-region communication.
Why it's wrong here
No such configuration needed.
✓
The health checks for the ALBs are failing, so traffic is diverted to other regions.
Why this is correct
Unhealthy endpoints are excluded from routing.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
The endpoints are configured in the same AWS region.
Why it's wrong here
Multiple regions are required for proximity routing.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often overlook the impact of health checks on routing decisions and assume the issue is a misconfiguration of the accelerator or endpoints, rather than a failure in endpoint health monitoring.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Global Accelerator uses Anycast IP addresses and the AWS global network to route traffic to the nearest healthy endpoint. It performs health checks on endpoints (e.g., ALBs) every 10 seconds by default, with a threshold of 3 consecutive failures to mark an endpoint unhealthy. When an endpoint is marked unhealthy, Global Accelerator automatically fails over to the next closest healthy endpoint, which can be in a different region, causing the observed behavior.
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.
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
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Networking and Content Delivery — This question tests Networking and Content Delivery — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: The health checks for the ALBs are failing, so traffic is diverted to other regions. — Global Accelerator uses health checks to determine endpoint availability. If the health checks for an ALB in a user's closest region are failing, Global Accelerator will consider that endpoint unhealthy and route traffic to the next closest healthy region. This causes users to be directed to a region farther away, even though a closer region exists.
What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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