SOA-C02 Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation Practice Question
This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of monitoring, logging, and remediation. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. 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 SysOps administrator is setting up monitoring for an application that runs on Amazon ECS with Fargate launch type. The application's performance degrades when memory utilization exceeds 80%. The administrator wants to receive a notification when memory usage approaches this threshold. What should the administrator do?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create a CloudWatch alarm on the ECS service's MemoryUtilization metric
Option D is correct because Amazon ECS services automatically publish a `MemoryUtilization` metric to CloudWatch for Fargate tasks. By creating a CloudWatch alarm on this metric with a threshold of 80%, the administrator can trigger an SNS notification when memory usage approaches the threshold, enabling proactive remediation before performance degrades.
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.
✗
Install the CloudWatch agent on each Fargate task
Why it's wrong here
Fargate does not support installing a CloudWatch agent; metrics are provided by ECS.
✗
Use Amazon CloudWatch Container Insights to view ReservedMemory metric
Why it's wrong here
Container Insights provides metrics but ReservedMemory is not a standard metric for alarms.
✗
Enable Service Auto Scaling with a target tracking policy based on MemoryUtilization
Why it's wrong here
This would scale the service, not send a notification.
✓
Create a CloudWatch alarm on the ECS service's MemoryUtilization metric
Why this is correct
ECS provides MemoryUtilization metric for services, and an alarm can trigger notifications.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often assume they need to install an agent or use Container Insights to get memory metrics, but ECS Fargate automatically publishes `MemoryUtilization` and `CPUUtilization` metrics to CloudWatch without any extra setup.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
The `MemoryUtilization` metric for ECS Fargate tasks is emitted by the ECS service itself, calculated as (memory used / memory reserved) * 100, and is available in CloudWatch without any additional configuration. A CloudWatch alarm can be set with a period of 1 minute and a threshold of 80, using a statistic like Average or Maximum, and configured to send a notification via an SNS topic. In a real-world scenario, this alarm can be paired with a CloudWatch Events rule to trigger a Lambda function that takes preemptive action, such as draining connections or logging diagnostic data.
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
A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
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.
Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation — This question tests Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Create a CloudWatch alarm on the ECS service's MemoryUtilization metric — Option D is correct because Amazon ECS services automatically publish a `MemoryUtilization` metric to CloudWatch for Fargate tasks. By creating a CloudWatch alarm on this metric with a threshold of 80%, the administrator can trigger an SNS notification when memory usage approaches the threshold, enabling proactive remediation before performance degrades.
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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