Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A SysOps administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an Amazon EC2 instance and receive an email notification when the metric exceeds 90% for 5 consecutive minutes. The solution should use the least operational overhead. Which combination of AWS services should be used?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Best answer
Create a CloudWatch alarm on the CPUUtilization metric and configure the alarm to send a notification to an Amazon SNS topic with email subscriptions.
This is the simplest approach. CloudWatch natively monitors EC2 metrics and can trigger SNS notifications without any custom code.
B
Distractor review
Create an Amazon EventBridge rule that triggers an AWS Lambda function to check the CPUUtilization metric and send an email via Amazon SES.
This adds unnecessary complexity. CloudWatch alarms already provide the needed evaluation and SNS integration.
C
Distractor review
Configure the EC2 instance to publish CPU logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs, then create a metric filter to detect high CPU and trigger an SNS notification.
CPU utilization is already available as a CloudWatch metric, not a log. This approach is inefficient and requires custom log publishing.
D
Distractor review
Use AWS CloudTrail to monitor EC2 CPU metrics and send notifications to an Amazon SQS queue.
CloudTrail records API calls, not performance metrics. It cannot monitor CPU utilization.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
Related practice questions
Related SOA-C02 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A company uses Amazon CloudFront to deliver content to a global audience. The origin is an Application Load Balancer in us-east-1. The SysOps administrator wants to reduce costs by minimizing the number of requests that reach the origin server. Which action should the administrator take?
Question 2
A company runs a batch processing application on Amazon EC2 that runs for 2 hours every night. The workload can tolerate interruptions. Which EC2 purchasing option provides the lowest cost for this use case?
Question 3
A SysOps administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an Amazon RDS DB instance and receive an alarm when CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used to create this alarm?
Question 4
A company runs a critical web application on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application uses session stickiness (sticky sessions) to maintain user sessions. The SysOps administrator notices that when instances are replaced during a scale-in or failure event, users lose their session data. The administrator needs to preserve session data across instance failures without losing stickiness benefits. What should the administrator do?
Question 5
A company runs a production web application on a single Amazon EC2 instance. The application experiences a predictable and steady workload 24/7. The SysOps administrator wants to minimize compute costs for this instance while ensuring it remains available during the expected workload. Which EC2 purchasing option should the administrator use?
Question 6
A company has a VPC with public and private subnets. The private subnets host application servers that need to make outbound HTTPS connections to the internet. The SysOps administrator must implement a solution that provides outbound internet connectivity while preventing inbound connections from the internet. Additionally, the solution must allow the company to control which domains the application servers can access. Which solution should the administrator implement?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SOA-C02 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Create a CloudWatch alarm on the CPUUtilization metric and configure the alarm to send a notification to an Amazon SNS topic with email subscriptions. — Amazon CloudWatch can create an alarm on the CPUUtilization metric. The alarm can be configured to evaluate the metric over a period of 5 consecutive minutes (e.g., 5 data points within 5 minutes) and trigger an action. The action can be an Amazon SNS topic that sends an email notification to subscribed endpoints. This requires no custom code. Option B uses Lambda, which is unnecessary overhead. Option C filters logs, which is not for CPU metrics. Option D uses CloudTrail, which records API calls, not CPU metrics.
What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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