SOA-C02 Networking and Content Delivery Practice Question
An application uses Amazon Route 53 weighted routing to distribute traffic across two AWS regions. After a deployment, users in one region are experiencing errors. What should the administrator do to mitigate the issue immediately?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is reaching for a design change (latency-based routing) or a disruptive action (restarting instances) when the question asks for immediate mitigation — candidates must recognize that setting weight to 0 is the fastest, least disruptive Route 53-native way to drain traffic from a failing region.
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
✓
Set the weight of the affected region's record to 0 and verify health checks are configured.
Setting the weight of the affected region's Route 53 record to 0 immediately removes that region from the weighted routing rotation, diverting all traffic to the healthy region. Verifying that health checks are configured ensures Route 53 can automatically fail over if the region becomes unhealthy again, providing both immediate mitigation and ongoing resilience.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Update the alias record to point to a different load balancer.
Why it's wrong here
Repointing the alias record bypasses weighted routing entirely and shifts all traffic to one load balancer, removing the ability to drain the failing region gradually. Alias record changes suit migrating to a replacement endpoint, not temporarily reducing weight on a region returning errors.
- ✗
Change the routing policy from weighted to latency-based.
Why it's wrong here
Latency-based routing still directs users to the impaired region whenever it measures closest, so errors persist. This policy is chosen when optimising response times across healthy regions, not for withdrawing traffic from a region that has just failed a deployment.
- ✗
Restart the EC2 instances in the affected region.
Why it's wrong here
Restarting instances does not change Route 53 weighting, so traffic continues flowing to the affected region during the reboot and afterwards. Instance restarts address stuck processes or memory exhaustion, not the need to divert users away from a bad deployment.
- ✓
Set the weight of the affected region's record to 0 and verify health checks are configured.
Why this is correct
Weighted routing with weight 0 stops Route 53 returning that region's record while leaving the other region serving traffic, giving immediate mitigation. Health checks then prevent DNS from resolving to the failing region if it is re-enabled.
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JA
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
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