SOA-C02 Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation Practice Question
A SysOps admin is investigating why a CloudWatch alarm did not trigger an SNS notification when a metric breached the threshold. The alarm state is visible in the console as 'ALARM'. What is the most likely reason the notification was not sent?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers assume any alarm in ALARM state will automatically trigger its configured SNS action, overlooking the requirement that the SNS subscription must be in a confirmed state before messages can be delivered.
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
✓
The SNS topic's subscription is not confirmed
The most likely reason the notification was not sent is that the SNS topic's subscription is not confirmed. When an SNS topic sends a notification to an endpoint such as email, HTTP, or SMS, the subscription must first be confirmed by the subscriber. If the subscription remains in a 'Pending confirmation' state, SNS will not deliver messages to that endpoint, even if the CloudWatch alarm transitions to the ALARM state and publishes to the topic.
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 SNS topic's subscription is not confirmed
Why this is correct
For CloudWatch alarms that use Amazon SNS to send notifications, the SNS subscription must be confirmed before messages can be delivered to the endpoint. Email subscriptions require the recipient to click the confirmation link sent by SNS; if this step is skipped, the subscription remains in a 'PendingConfirmation' state, and SNS silently drops the alarm notification while the alarm itself still changes state. This is a common cause of a 'silent' CloudWatch alarm, so checking the subscription confirmation status in the SNS console is the first troubleshooting step.
- ✗
The alarm name contains special characters
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch alarm names have a relaxed character set that includes letters, numbers, spaces, and special characters such as underscores and hyphens. The constraints on alarm names only limit the length (1–255 characters) and require UTF-8 encoding; there is no restriction that special characters break the alarm or its publishing logic. Even if an alarm name contains something like '!' or '&', CloudWatch still evaluates the metric and sends SNS notifications normally, so the name is irrelevant to delivery failure.
- ✗
The alarm's evaluation period is set to 1 minute
Why it's wrong here
An evaluation period of 1 minute simply means the alarm evaluates the metric once per minute, which is a valid and commonly used configuration for high-frequency monitoring. CloudWatch supports evaluation periods as low as 1 minute (or even 10 seconds for high-resolution metrics) without any effect on the alarm's ability to publish to SNS. Setting a short evaluation period only makes the alarm more responsive; it does not interfere with the SNS notification pathway or cause the alarm to be silent.
- ✗
The metric has a resolution of 1 minute
Why it's wrong here
Metric resolution refers to how often the underlying metric data is published (e.g., 1-minute standard resolution versus high resolution with sub-minute granularity). The resolution setting affects the granularity of data points and the minimum evaluation period that can be used, but it does not influence whether the alarm successfully sends an SNS notification. A 1-minute resolution metric is the standard, fully supported configuration, and CloudWatch will evaluate it and publish to SNS exactly as expected.
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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.