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Question 529 of 1,546

Reliability and Business Continuity →hardMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

SOA-C02 Reliability and Business Continuity Practice Question

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.

An application runs on EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. The instances process messages from an SQS queue. To ensure high availability, the SysOps administrator has configured the Auto Scaling group to span three Availability Zones. However, during a recent failure of one AZ, the application experienced a temporary increase in processing latency. What is the MOST likely cause of this latency?

Clue words in this question

Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.

Clue: "most likely"
Why it matters: Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.

A
The SQS queue is configured to use a single AZ for message storage.
Why wrong: Incorrect: SQS automatically stores messages in multiple AZs.
B
SQS messages in the failed AZ are temporarily unavailable until they are replicated to other AZs.
Correct: SQS stores messages redundantly across AZs, but if an AZ fails, messages in that AZ may be temporarily unavailable until replication completes, causing a brief latency spike.
C
The application is not configured to process messages from multiple AZs.
Why wrong: Incorrect: The application processes messages from the queue, which is agnostic to AZs.
D
The Auto Scaling group's minimum size is too low to handle the load after the AZ failure.
Why wrong: Incorrect: The question states the Auto Scaling group spans three AZs; latency increase is due to message unavailability, not compute capacity.

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

✓

SQS messages in the failed AZ are temporarily unavailable until they are replicated to other AZs.

SQS stores messages redundantly across multiple AZs within a region, but when an AZ fails, messages that were in-flight or stored in that AZ become temporarily unavailable until the SQS service completes its internal replication and recovery processes. This transient unavailability causes a spike in processing latency because the application cannot retrieve those messages until they are replicated to healthy AZs. The latency resolves once SQS finishes replicating the messages to the remaining AZs.

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.

✗
The SQS queue is configured to use a single AZ for message storage.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: SQS automatically stores messages in multiple AZs.
✓
SQS messages in the failed AZ are temporarily unavailable until they are replicated to other AZs.
Why this is correct
Correct: SQS stores messages redundantly across AZs, but if an AZ fails, messages in that AZ may be temporarily unavailable until replication completes, causing a brief latency spike.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "most likely" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
The application is not configured to process messages from multiple AZs.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: The application processes messages from the queue, which is agnostic to AZs.
✗
The Auto Scaling group's minimum size is too low to handle the load after the AZ failure.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: The question states the Auto Scaling group spans three AZs; latency increase is due to message unavailability, not compute capacity.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates assume SQS is always immediately available across all AZs, but they overlook the temporary unavailability of messages during AZ failure recovery due to SQS's internal replication process.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

SQS uses a distributed, replicated storage system where each message is stored on multiple servers across at least three AZs in the region. When an AZ fails, the SQS service must detect the failure, promote replicas from other AZs, and re-replicate any messages that were only in the failed AZ—this process can take several seconds to minutes, during which those messages are unavailable. This behavior is distinct from S3's eventual consistency model and is a key consideration for latency-sensitive workloads using SQS.

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 media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.

Visual reference

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: SQS messages in the failed AZ are temporarily unavailable until they are replicated to other AZs. — SQS stores messages redundantly across multiple AZs within a region, but when an AZ fails, messages that were in-flight or stored in that AZ become temporarily unavailable until the SQS service completes its internal replication and recovery processes. This transient unavailability causes a spike in processing latency because the application cannot retrieve those messages until they are replicated to healthy AZs. The latency resolves once SQS finishes replicating the messages to the remaining AZs.

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.

Are there clue words in this question I should notice?

Yes — watch for: "most likely". Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.

What is the key concept behind this question?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

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