SOA-C02 Networking and Content Delivery Practice Question
A SysOps administrator needs to ensure high availability for a web application running on EC2 instances across multiple Availability Zones. Which TWO actions should the administrator take?
⚠ Common exam trap
SOA-C02 often tests the confusion between content delivery (CloudFront) and high availability, or between data replication (EBS) and compute redundancy, causing candidates to select options that do not address AZ-level fault tolerance.
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
✓
Launch EC2 instances in at least two different Availability Zones.
Option A is correct because distributing EC2 instances across at least two Availability Zones ensures the application survives the failure of a single AZ, which is the foundation of high availability in AWS. Option D is correct because an Application Load Balancer with health checks automatically detects unhealthy instances and routes traffic only to healthy targets across those AZs, maintaining availability during instance or AZ failures. Option B is not correct because CloudFront is a CDN that caches content at edge locations; it improves latency and offloads origin traffic but does not by itself provide multi-AZ failover for EC2 compute. Option C is not correct because concentrating all instances in one AZ creates a single point of failure, directly contradicting the high-availability requirement. Option E is not correct because EBS volumes are tied to a single AZ and cannot be attached across AZs, and real-time replication of EBS is not how EC2-level high availability is achieved.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Launch EC2 instances in at least two different Availability Zones.
Why this is correct
Spreading instances across two or more Availability Zones ensures an outage affecting one data centre does not take down the whole application, directly satisfying the multi-AZ high-availability constraint. Each AZ has independent power, cooling and networking, so a single-zone failure leaves capacity running elsewhere.
- ✗
Place a CloudFront distribution in front of the instances.
Why it's wrong here
CloudFront caches content at edge locations and terminates TLS, but it does not place compute capacity in a second Availability Zone; if the AZ hosting the instances fails, the origin is unavailable. It is tempting because CloudFront improves latency and absorbs traffic spikes, which is its actual purpose.
- ✗
Launch all EC2 instances in a single Availability Zone for consistency.
Why it's wrong here
Concentrating every instance in one Availability Zone means an AZ-level failure removes all capacity simultaneously, directly contradicting the multi-AZ requirement. Single-AZ placement is tempting when pursuing consistent latency or avoiding cross-AZ data transfer charges, which is what it genuinely optimises for.
- ✓
Register the instances with an Application Load Balancer that has health checks enabled.
Why this is correct
Registering instances with an Application Load Balancer distributes traffic across Availability Zones, and health checks automatically remove unhealthy targets from rotation. This directly satisfies the high availability requirement by ensuring traffic only reaches functioning instances, so a single AZ or instance failure does not interrupt the web application.
- ✗
Attach an EBS volume to each instance and replicate data in real-time.
Why it's wrong here
An EBS volume is tied to one Availability Zone, so real-time replication between volumes cannot span AZs and adds no failover capacity; the instances themselves remain single points of failure. EBS replication is tempting for durability within an AZ, which is the scenario where it belongs.
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
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.