Question 1hardmultiple choice
Full question →hardmultiple choiceObjective-mapped
An organization requires that all Amazon EC2 instances must be launched only with approved Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) that have been pre-approved by the security team. The SysOps administrator needs to enforce this policy for all current and future instances in the AWS account. Unapproved AMIs should be prevented from launching. Which solution meets these requirements with the least operational overhead?
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
Use AWS Config with the 'approved-amis-by-id' managed rule to evaluate and automatically remediate noncompliant instances.
AWS Config can continuously monitor and automatically remediate instances launched with unapproved AMIs, requiring minimal manual effort.
B
Distractor review
Use an AWS Service Control Policy (SCP) to deny ec2:RunInstances if the AMI ID is not in an approved list.
While SCPs can enforce this, they are configured at the organization level and require AWS Organizations, adding complexity and operational overhead.
C
Distractor review
Create an IAM policy that denies ec2:RunInstances for any AMI not on an approved list and attach it to all IAM users and roles.
This requires managing policy attachments for every principal, increasing operational overhead and risk of missing some principals.
D
Distractor review
Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager to approve AMIs and configure the fleet to use only approved images.
Patch Manager is for patching existing instances, not for controlling which AMIs can be used to launch new instances.
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: Use AWS Config with the 'approved-amis-by-id' managed rule to evaluate and automatically remediate noncompliant instances. — AWS Config provides a managed rule named 'approved-amis-by-id' that can evaluate whether EC2 instances are launched with AMIs from a specified list of approved AMI IDs. The rule can automatically remediate noncompliant instances (e.g., terminate them) using AWS Systems Manager Automation or Lambda functions. AWS Service Control Policies (SCPs) operate at the organizational level and cannot restrict specific AMI IDs because the ec2:RunInstances condition key for AMI IDs (ec2:ImageId) is supported in SCPs, but SCPs are typically used for account-wide boundaries, not for fine-grained AMI approval per environment. However, SCPs can block launch actions if the image ID is not in an allow list, but SCPs require AWS Organizations and careful management. The question emphasizes 'least operational overhead'. Config is easier to set up and maintain at the account level without needing Organizations. IAM policies can leverage the ec2:ImageId condition key but need to be attached to every role/user, which is more overhead. AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager is for patching, not AMI approval.
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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