SOA-C02 Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation Practice Question
A SysOps administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an Amazon EC2 instance fleet and send an alert when the average CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 10 consecutive minutes. The administrator also wants to automatically stop the instance if the CPU utilization remains above 90% for 30 minutes to prevent runaway costs. Which combination of AWS services should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers assume Systems Manager Automation (Option A) is required for instance stop actions, but Lambda is simpler and directly triggered by SNS, while Automation is better suited for complex multi-step workflows like patching or AMI creation.
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
✓
Amazon CloudWatch alarm + Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) + AWS Lambda
It uses Amazon CloudWatch alarms to monitor CPU utilization metrics and trigger an SNS topic, which then invokes an AWS Lambda function. The Lambda function can execute the logic to stop the EC2 instance when the alarm state indicates CPU utilization above 90% for 30 minutes, providing automated cost control without manual intervention.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon CloudWatch alarm + AWS Lambda + AWS Systems Manager Automation
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch alarms can directly stop an EC2 instance using the built-in EC2 action, so adding Lambda and Systems Manager Automation introduces unnecessary complexity and potential latency for a simple stop trigger. This combination is tempting because Lambda plus Automation often handles multi-step remediation—for example, taking a snapshot or notifying before stopping—and would be the correct choice if the scenario required pre-stop actions beyond the alarm’s basic stop behaviour.
- ✓
Amazon CloudWatch alarm + Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) + AWS Lambda
Why this is correct
A CloudWatch alarm monitors the CPU metric and publishes to an SNS topic when the threshold is breached. The SNS topic triggers a Lambda function that calls the EC2 StopInstances API to stop the instance. This is a clean, low-overhead solution.
- ✗
Amazon CloudWatch Logs + Amazon EventBridge + AWS Step Functions
Why it's wrong here
CPU utilization is a metric, not a log. CloudWatch Logs is for log data, not metrics. EventBridge can trigger on metric alarms, but Step Functions is an orchestration service that adds unnecessary complexity for a simple stop action.
- ✗
AWS CloudTrail + Amazon EventBridge + AWS CodePipeline
Why it's wrong here
AWS CloudTrail records API activity in the account (e.g., who called EC2 RunInstances or StopInstances), not time-series CPU utilization. EventBridge can schedule or react to events, but without a metric source like CloudWatch alarms, it has no CPU data to act on. CodePipeline is for CI/CD orchestration—building, testing, deploying—not for instance lifecycle management. Thus this stack cannot detect or respond to high CPU utilization, and is fundamentally mismatched for the requirement.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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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.