This CV0-004 practice question tests your understanding of operations and support. 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 cloud engineer is deploying a new application that requires high availability. The solution must include automated failover and load balancing. Which TWO of the following should the engineer implement?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Configure an auto scaling group with a minimum of two instances across two availability zones.
Option A is correct because deploying an auto scaling group with a minimum of two instances across two availability zones ensures that if one instance or zone fails, the other can continue serving traffic, providing high availability. This setup also supports automated failover by replacing unhealthy instances automatically, and it works with a load balancer to distribute traffic. The combination of multi-AZ placement and auto scaling is a foundational pattern for fault-tolerant architectures in cloud environments.
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.
✓
Configure an auto scaling group with a minimum of two instances across two availability zones.
Why this is correct
Auto scaling provides automated replacement and multi-AZ distribution.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Take daily snapshots of the instance and store them in a different region.
Why it's wrong here
Snapshots are for backup, not automated failover.
✗
Configure a read replica in a different region for failover.
Why it's wrong here
Read replicas are for database read scaling, not general application failover.
✗
Deploy the application on a single large instance with more resources.
Why it's wrong here
Single instance is a single point of failure.
✓
Place the instances behind an application load balancer with health checks.
Why this is correct
Load balancer distributes traffic and routes away from unhealthy instances.
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 data backup or database replication (options B and C) with application-level high availability and load balancing, failing to recognize that automated failover and load balancing require multiple active compute instances and a traffic distributor, not just data redundancy.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, an auto scaling group with a minimum of two instances across two availability zones uses health checks (e.g., EC2 status checks or ELB health checks) to detect instance failure and automatically launches a replacement instance in a different zone if needed. The application load balancer (ALB) operates at Layer 7, using the HTTP/HTTPS protocol to distribute traffic based on rules and health checks, and it can perform connection draining to gracefully handle instance deregistration. In a real-world scenario, this architecture ensures that even during a full availability zone outage, the ALB routes traffic only to healthy instances in the remaining zone, maintaining application availability.
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 small business has 20 workstations on the 192.168.1.0/24 network and one public IP from its ISP. The router uses PAT (NAT overload) so all 20 devices share one public address using different source ports. NAT questions test whether you understand the four address terms and which direction each translation applies.
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.
Operations and Support — This question tests Operations and Support — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Configure an auto scaling group with a minimum of two instances across two availability zones. — Option A is correct because deploying an auto scaling group with a minimum of two instances across two availability zones ensures that if one instance or zone fails, the other can continue serving traffic, providing high availability. This setup also supports automated failover by replacing unhealthy instances automatically, and it works with a load balancer to distribute traffic. The combination of multi-AZ placement and auto scaling is a foundational pattern for fault-tolerant architectures in cloud environments.
What should I do if I get this CV0-004 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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Question Discussion
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