← SOA-C02·Amazon Web Services

Question 1,504 of 1,546

Reliability and Business Continuity →mediumMultiple SelectObjective-mapped

How to Ensure Automatic Rollback on CloudFormation Stack Update Failure

This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of reliability and business continuity. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. A key principle to apply: rollback on failure. 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 company is using AWS CloudFormation to manage infrastructure. They want to ensure that if a stack update fails, the stack automatically rolls back to the last known good state. Which two steps should the company take? (Choose TWO.)

A
Define a stack policy that prevents updates to critical resources.
Why wrong: Stack policies protect specific resources from being updated, but do not provide automatic rollback.
B
Set the 'Rollback on failure' option to 'Yes' in the stack update options.
This ensures automatic rollback to the previous state if the update fails.
C
Create a change set before updating the stack and execute it after review.
Change sets allow you to preview changes, reducing the chance of a failed update.
D
Enable termination protection on the stack.
Why wrong: Termination protection prevents stack deletion, not rollback.
E
Configure an Amazon SNS topic to send notifications when the stack update fails.
Why wrong: Notifications inform but do not trigger rollback.

Full breakdown with real-world context →

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 'Rollback on failure' option to 'Yes' in the stack update options.

Both options B and C are correct. Option B: Setting 'Rollback on failure' to 'Yes' ensures that if the update fails, CloudFormation automatically rolls back to the last known good state. Option C: Creating a change set before updating allows you to review the changes and ensure they are correct before executing the update, which is a best practice to avoid failures; it does not itself perform a rollback but helps prevent failures.

Key principle: Rollback on failure

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

✗
Define a stack policy that prevents updates to critical resources.
Why it's wrong here
Stack policies protect specific resources from being updated, but do not provide automatic rollback.
✓
Set the 'Rollback on failure' option to 'Yes' in the stack update options.
Why this is correct
This ensures automatic rollback to the previous state if the update fails.
Related concept
Rollback on failure
✓
Create a change set before updating the stack and execute it after review.
Why this is correct
Change sets allow you to preview changes, reducing the chance of a failed update.
Related concept
Rollback on failure
✗
Enable termination protection on the stack.
Why it's wrong here
Termination protection prevents stack deletion, not rollback.
✗
Configure an Amazon SNS topic to send notifications when the stack update fails.
Why it's wrong here
Notifications inform but do not trigger rollback.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

Candidates often assume that only automatic rollback settings are relevant, but creating a change set is also a recommended step to preview changes and avoid failures, making it a correct action for ensuring reliability during updates.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Under the hood, CloudFormation uses a change set to track the intended modifications, and when 'Rollback on failure' is enabled, the service monitors the stack creation or update events. If any resource fails to reach a CREATE_COMPLETE or UPDATE_COMPLETE state, CloudFormation automatically initiates a rollback by deleting or reverting resources in reverse order of creation, using the previous stack template and parameters. A real-world scenario is when a misconfigured security group rule causes an update to fail; with rollback enabled, CloudFormation restores the original security group rules, avoiding a security hole.

KKey Concepts to Remember

Rollback on failure
Change set

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

Rollback on failure

Real-world example

How this comes up in practice

A cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Rollback on failure Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.

What to study next

Got this wrong? Here's your next step.

Review rollback on failure, then practise related SOA-C02 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.

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FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this SOA-C02 question test?

Reliability and Business Continuity — This question tests Reliability and Business Continuity — Rollback on failure.

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Set the 'Rollback on failure' option to 'Yes' in the stack update options. — Both options B and C are correct. Option B: Setting 'Rollback on failure' to 'Yes' ensures that if the update fails, CloudFormation automatically rolls back to the last known good state. Option C: Creating a change set before updating allows you to review the changes and ensure they are correct before executing the update, which is a best practice to avoid failures; it does not itself perform a rollback but helps prevent failures.

What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?

Review rollback on failure, then practise related SOA-C02 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.

What is the key concept behind this question?

Rollback on failure

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Same concept, more angles

1 more ways 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 company uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy infrastructure. They want to ensure that if a stack update fails, the stack automatically rolls back to the last known good state. Which CloudFormation stack policy should be used?

medium

✓ A.Use the default 'Rollback on failure' setting.
B.Enable termination protection on the stack.
C.Use a stack policy that prevents specific resources from being updated.
D.Set 'DisableRollback' to false.

Why A: The default 'Rollback on failure' setting in AWS CloudFormation automatically triggers a stack rollback to the last known good state when a stack update fails. This is the built-in behavior that ensures reliability by reverting changes if an error occurs during the update process.

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