SOA-C02 Reliability and Business Continuity Practice Question
Network Topology
Refer to the exhibit. A SysOps administrator ran the commands shown. What is the state of the EC2 instance?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse `SystemStatus: impaired` with instance state (e.g., stopped or terminated), when in fact the instance is still running but the underlying host has a problem that affects its reliability.
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
✓
The instance is running but has a system impairment.
The `aws ec2 describe-instance-status` command with the `--instance-id` flag returns the instance's system status checks. The output shows `SystemStatus: impaired`, which indicates that the instance is running but has a system impairment (e.g., loss of network connectivity or power). This status is determined by AWS's automated status checks that run every minute, and an impaired status means the underlying host has an issue that affects the instance.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The instance is running and healthy.
Why it's wrong here
The instance is running and healthy: The AWS instance state is 'running', but the EC2 status checks reveal a system status of 'impaired'. In EC2, the instance state only indicates that the instance has been started and is not stopped or terminated; it does not guarantee that the underlying infrastructure or the instance is healthy. The system status check specifically monitors AWS-side dependencies such as physical host connectivity, power, and networking. Because this check has failed, the instance cannot be considered healthy, making this option incorrect.
- ✗
The instance is terminated.
Why it's wrong here
The instance is terminated: The instance state clearly shows 'running', whereas a terminated instance would show a state of 'terminated' and would no longer consume compute resources or incur compute charges. A terminated instance cannot be started or accessed, and no status check data would be displayed for a terminated instance. Since the exhibit shows the instance state as 'running' with active status check details, the instance is definitely not terminated.
- ✓
The instance is running but has a system impairment.
Why this is correct
The instance is running but has a system impairment: The EC2 instance state is 'running', meaning it has been successfully launched and is operational at the hypervisor level. However, the system status check reports 'impaired', which indicates a problem with the physical host or the AWS infrastructure that supports the instance, such as loss of network connectivity, power loss, or hardware failure. The instance may still be responsive at the guest OS level, but the underlying system is degraded, so this option correctly describes both the running state and the system impairment.
- ✗
The instance is stopped.
Why it's wrong here
The instance is stopped: A stopped instance would show a state of 'stopped', meaning the virtual machine is shut down, compute resources are released, but EBS volumes remain attached and persistent. In a stopped state, no status checks would be reported as 'impaired' because the instance is not running on a host. Since the exhibit shows the instance state as 'running', this option is incorrect.
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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.