← SOA-C02·Amazon Web Services

Question 1,063 of 1,546

Reliability and Business Continuity →hardMultiple SelectObjective-mapped

Components for Highly Available ALB and Auto Scaling Group

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. 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 is designing a highly available architecture for a web application using an Application Load Balancer and an Auto Scaling group across three Availability Zones. The application must be able to withstand the loss of an entire AZ. Which THREE components are necessary to meet this requirement? (Choose THREE.)

A
Use a single NAT gateway to provide internet access.
Why wrong: A single NAT gateway is a single point of failure.
B
Launch EC2 instances in at least two Availability Zones.
Multi-AZ deployment is essential for AZ failure tolerance.
C
Configure health checks on the ALB target group.
Health checks ensure traffic is sent only to healthy instances.
D
Use a cluster placement group for EC2 instances.
Why wrong: Cluster placement group is within a single AZ.
E
Enable cross-zone load balancing on the ALB.
Cross-zone load balancing distributes traffic across AZs.

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

✓

Launch EC2 instances in at least two Availability Zones.

Option B is correct because launching EC2 instances in at least two Availability Zones (AZs) ensures that if one AZ fails, the Auto Scaling group can still serve traffic from instances in the remaining AZs. This is a fundamental requirement for high availability, as an Auto Scaling group spanning multiple AZs can automatically replace failed instances in other zones. Without multi-AZ deployment, a single AZ failure would cause complete application downtime.

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.

✗
Use a single NAT gateway to provide internet access.
Why it's wrong here
A single NAT gateway is a single point of failure.
✓
Launch EC2 instances in at least two Availability Zones.
Why this is correct
Multi-AZ deployment is essential for AZ failure tolerance.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Configure health checks on the ALB target group.
Why this is correct
Health checks ensure traffic is sent only to healthy instances.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use a cluster placement group for EC2 instances.
Why it's wrong here
Cluster placement group is within a single AZ.
✓
Enable cross-zone load balancing on the ALB.
Why this is correct
Cross-zone load balancing distributes traffic across AZs.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates often confuse a single NAT gateway with high availability, not realizing that a NAT gateway is AZ-specific and requires one per AZ for fault tolerance, or they mistakenly think a cluster placement group improves availability when it actually concentrates instances into a single failure domain.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Cross-zone load balancing (Option E) distributes traffic evenly across all registered instances in all AZs, preventing uneven load distribution when instances fail or are replaced. Without cross-zone load balancing, the ALB would only route traffic to instances in the same AZ as the requesting client, potentially overloading remaining healthy AZs during a failure. Health checks (Option C) are essential because they allow the ALB to detect unhealthy instances and stop sending traffic to them, while also triggering Auto Scaling replacement actions.

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 company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.

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.

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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 — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Launch EC2 instances in at least two Availability Zones. — Option B is correct because launching EC2 instances in at least two Availability Zones (AZs) ensures that if one AZ fails, the Auto Scaling group can still serve traffic from instances in the remaining AZs. This is a fundamental requirement for high availability, as an Auto Scaling group spanning multiple AZs can automatically replace failed instances in other zones. Without multi-AZ deployment, a single AZ failure would cause complete application downtime.

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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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 SysOps administrator is designing a highly available architecture for a web application using an Application Load Balancer (ALB) with EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. Which TWO configurations are required to ensure high availability? (Choose TWO.)

medium

A.Launch all EC2 instances in a single Availability Zone to reduce latency
B.Use t2.micro instances to reduce cost
✓ C.Configure the ALB with health checks for the target group
D.Disable health checks to reduce load on the ALB
✓ E.Configure the Auto Scaling group to launch instances in at least two Availability Zones

Why C: Option C is correct because health checks allow the ALB to monitor the status of each EC2 instance in the target group. If an instance fails health checks, the ALB automatically stops routing traffic to it, preventing user requests from reaching a failed instance. This is essential for maintaining application availability and is a core feature of the ALB's high-availability design.

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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.