Question 1easymultiple choice
Full question →Question 9 of 315
easymultiple choiceObjective-mapped
SOA-C02 Practice Question: Reserved Instances for predictable workload to…
This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of reserved instances for predictable workload to…. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. A key principle to apply: reserved Instances. 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.
An application runs on c5.xlarge EC2 instances 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in us-east-1. The workload is stable and will not change instance type for at least 12 months. The team wants to reduce compute costs by 30 to 40 percent compared to On-Demand pricing. Which purchasing option achieves this with the lowest financial risk?
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
Distractor review
Use Spot Instances with an interruption tolerance of 5 minutes for the workload
Spot Instances can be interrupted with 2-minute warning when EC2 capacity is needed. A 24/7 production workload that cannot tolerate interruption is not suitable for Spot Instances. Spot is appropriate for fault-tolerant, flexible workloads such as batch processing or stateless web tiers.
B
Distractor review
Enable EC2 Auto Scaling with a target tracking policy to scale down to zero instances during off-peak hours
The workload runs 24/7 and does not have off-peak hours. Scaling to zero is not applicable for a continuously running application. Auto Scaling with target tracking optimizes capacity for variable workloads, not for reducing costs on a continuously required instance.
C
Distractor review
Purchase a 3-year Convertible Reserved Instance to maximize the discount percentage
A 3-year commitment maximizes discount but introduces risk over a 36-month period for a workload only confirmed stable for 12 months. The question asks for the lowest financial risk — a 1-year RI minimizes the commitment period while still achieving the target savings.
D
Best answer
Purchase a 1-year Standard Reserved Instance for c5.xlarge in us-east-1 with All Upfront or Partial Upfront payment
A 1-year Standard RI matches the 12-month stability horizon and delivers 30–40 percent savings versus On-Demand. All Upfront provides the deepest discount; Partial Upfront reduces the upfront cash requirement with a slightly lower overall saving. The 1-year commitment limits risk compared to a 3-year commitment for an uncertain future period.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
Treat this as a scenario question. Identify the problem, the constraint, and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Reserved Instances
- 1-year vs 3-year term
- All Upfront vs No Upfront
- Convertible vs Standard
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
Reserved Instances
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?
Practice this exam
Start a free SOA-C02 practice session
Short sessions build daily habit. Longer sessions build exam-day stamina. Try a timed session to simulate real conditions.
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SOA-C02 question test?
Reserved Instances
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Purchase a 1-year Standard Reserved Instance for c5.xlarge in us-east-1 with All Upfront or Partial Upfront payment — Reserved Instances (RIs) offer significant discounts (up to 72 percent for a 3-year All Upfront Standard RI) compared to On-Demand in exchange for a commitment to use a specific instance type in a specific Region. For a 12-month stable workload, a 1-year Standard RI (All Upfront or Partial Upfront) provides 30–40 percent savings with a 1-year financial commitment. Standard RIs cannot change instance type or family. Convertible RIs allow instance attribute changes but provide smaller discounts (~20-30 percent for 1-year). Savings Plans (Compute or EC2 Instance) offer similar flexibility to Convertible RIs and are now generally preferred.
What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?
Review reserved Instances, then practise related SOA-C02 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Discussion
Loading comments…
Sign in to join the discussion.
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.