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 notices that an Amazon RDS instance's CPU utilization is consistently above 90% during peak hours. The application is read-heavy and can tolerate eventual consistency. Which action would MOST effectively reduce CPU load?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create one or more read replicas and direct read traffic to them.
The application is read-heavy and can tolerate eventual consistency, making read replicas the ideal solution. By offloading read traffic to one or more read replicas, the primary RDS instance's CPU load is reduced because it no longer has to process all read queries. This directly addresses the high CPU utilization during peak hours without requiring a larger instance or other changes.
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.
✗
Increase the instance size from db.r5.large to db.r5.xlarge.
Why it's wrong here
This may reduce CPU but is more expensive and not as effective as offloading reads.
✗
Enable Multi-AZ deployment for the RDS instance.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ provides failover but does not distribute read load.
✓
Create one or more read replicas and direct read traffic to them.
Why this is correct
Read replicas handle read queries, reducing load on the primary instance.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Change the storage type to Provisioned IOPS.
Why it's wrong here
Provisioned IOPS improve disk performance, not CPU.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Multi-AZ standby replicas with read replicas, assuming Multi-AZ can also offload read traffic, but AWS explicitly prohibits using the Multi-AZ standby for reads—it only supports failover.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Amazon RDS read replicas use asynchronous replication from the primary instance to one or more read-only replicas, which can be in the same or different AWS Regions. The application must be configured to direct read queries to the read replica endpoint(s), typically via a connection pool or DNS-level routing, to offload the primary. In a real-world scenario, if the application cannot tolerate even slight replication lag, read replicas would be unsuitable, but the question explicitly states eventual consistency is acceptable.
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 media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
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 one or more read replicas and direct read traffic to them. — The application is read-heavy and can tolerate eventual consistency, making read replicas the ideal solution. By offloading read traffic to one or more read replicas, the primary RDS instance's CPU load is reduced because it no longer has to process all read queries. This directly addresses the high CPU utilization during peak hours without requiring a larger instance or other changes.
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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