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Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation →easyMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

SOA-C02 Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation Practice Question

A SysOps administrator wants to receive a notification when an EC2 instance's status check fails. Which AWS service should be used to achieve this?

⚠ Common exam trap

Test-takers frequently confuse AWS Config (which evaluates configuration compliance) with CloudWatch Alarms (which monitor metric thresholds), leading them to select AWS Config for real-time health alerts instead of the correct monitoring service.

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 Alarms

Amazon CloudWatch Alarms can monitor EC2 instance status checks (both system and instance checks) and trigger an action, such as sending a notification via Amazon SNS, when a status check fails. This is the native AWS service designed for real-time monitoring and alerting on metric thresholds, making it the correct choice for this use case.

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 Alarms

    Why this is correct

    Amazon CloudWatch Alarms is the correct service because it directly consumes the EC2 StatusCheckFailed metric, which is emitted every minute by the instance hypervisor. You can configure an alarm on this metric with a threshold (e.g., >=1 for one or more consecutive evaluation periods) to transition to ALARM state, and then invoke an SNS topic to send notifications via email, SMS, or Lambda. CloudWatch also supports separate alarms for StatusCheckFailed_System (host-level issues) and StatusCheckFailed_Instance (guest-OS level issues), giving you granular, near-real-time health monitoring.

  • ✗

    AWS Config

    Why it's wrong here

    AWS Config is incorrect because it is a resource inventory and compliance service that records configuration changes, such as instance type modifications, security group changes, or whether a resource is tagged correctly. It does not ingest EC2 status check metrics or monitor the operational health of running instances, so it cannot detect or notify you when an instance fails a status check. You could create a Config rule to react to configuration changes, but that is not a substitute for metric-based health alarms and would not provide the same real-time, metric-driven notification.

  • ✗

    AWS CloudTrail

    Why it's wrong here

    AWS CloudTrail is incorrect because it records API activity and user actions for auditing purposes, such as who called RunInstances, StopInstances, or TerminateInstances. It does not monitor the internal health or status of running instances, and EC2 status check failures are not represented as API calls or event records in CloudTrail logs. Thus, CloudTrail is useful for security investigation and operational auditing, but it cannot generate a notification when an instance's status check fails.

  • ✗

    AWS Trusted Advisor

    Why it's wrong here

    AWS Trusted Advisor is incorrect because it performs periodic, static checks against your AWS environment to provide recommendations in categories like cost optimization, performance, security, fault tolerance, and service limits. While it can flag issues such as underutilized instances or missing Multi-AZ configurations, it does not monitor real-time EC2 health metrics or emit alarms based on StatusCheckFailed. Trusted Advisor checks run on a recurring schedule, not continuously with metric thresholds, so it cannot deliver immediate notifications for instance health failures.

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This SOA-C02 question is part of Courseiva's 247-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →

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Same concept, more angles

1 more way this is tested on SOA-C02

These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.

Variation 1. A SysOps administrator wants to receive a notification when an EC2 instance's status check fails. Which AWS service should the administrator use to set up an alarm based on the status check metric?

easy
  • ✓ A.Amazon CloudWatch Alarms
  • B.Amazon EventBridge
  • C.AWS Config
  • D.AWS Systems Manager

Why A: Amazon CloudWatch Alarms is the correct service because EC2 instance status checks are published as CloudWatch metrics (e.g., StatusCheckFailed, StatusCheckFailed_Instance, StatusCheckFailed_System). A CloudWatch Alarm can be configured to monitor these metrics and trigger an action, such as sending a notification via Amazon SNS, when the alarm state changes to ALARM. This directly meets the requirement to receive a notification when a status check fails.

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.