Question 332 of 1,013
Load Balancer and Health Checks: Ensuring Application Availability
A web application must keep running if one application server fails. Management wants the simplest design that automatically switches traffic to a healthy server. Which two choices support that goal? Select two.
Quick Answer
The answer is deploying at least two application servers in the same service pool behind a load balancer with health checks. This is correct because a load balancer uses health checks—such as HTTP/HTTPS probes or TCP port checks—to continuously monitor server responsiveness; when one server fails, the load balancer automatically redirects traffic to the remaining healthy servers, ensuring high availability without manual intervention. On the Security+ SY0-701 exam, this concept tests your understanding of fault tolerance and redundancy in network architecture, often appearing in questions about minimizing single points of failure. A common trap is confusing active-passive clustering with a simple load-balanced pool—remember that the simplest automatic failover requires only multiple servers in the same pool, not complex clustering software. Memory tip: “Two servers, one pool, health checks rule—if one goes down, the other stays cool.”
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often think a single server with backups (Option B) provides high availability, but backups only protect data, not uptime, and failover requires redundant servers and automatic traffic switching.
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
✓
Place the application behind a load balancer with health checks.
A load balancer with health checks can automatically detect a failed application server and redirect traffic to healthy servers, ensuring continuous availability. This is the simplest design that meets the requirement for automatic failover without manual intervention. Health checks typically use HTTP/HTTPS probes or TCP port checks to verify server responsiveness.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Place the application behind a load balancer with health checks.
Why this is correct
A load balancer can send traffic away from a failed server and toward healthy ones. Health checks are important because they let the platform detect when an instance should stop receiving requests.
- ✗
Run the application on a single server with nightly backups.
Why it's wrong here
Backups help recovery after data loss, but they do not keep the service running during a server failure. A single server also creates a clear availability bottleneck.
- ✓
Deploy at least two application servers in the same service pool.
Why this is correct
Having multiple application servers provides redundancy, which is necessary for failover. If one server goes down, the remaining server can continue serving users through the balancer or cluster.
- ✗
Disable health checks to avoid false failovers.
Why it's wrong here
Disabling health checks removes the mechanism that detects server problems. That would make the environment slower to recover and less reliable, not more resilient.
- ✗
Put the database on the public internet for easier access.
Why it's wrong here
Exposing the database publicly increases risk without improving server redundancy. Availability and security both suffer when internal components are unnecessarily internet-facing.
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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on SY0-701
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 payment application must keep running if one application server fails, and the business can tolerate no more than 5 minutes of lost transactions and 30 minutes of downtime during a site outage. Which two controls best match the availability requirements? Select two.
hard- ✓ A.Deploy at least two active application nodes behind a load balancer so one server failure does not interrupt service.
- B.Use a cold site that is powered off until a disaster is declared.
- ✓ C.Configure near-real-time database replication or synchronous replication to a standby so recent transactions are preserved.
- D.Take nightly backups to meet the 5-minute recovery point objective.
- E.Rely on weekly VM snapshots because they are faster than replication.
Why A: Deploying at least two active application nodes behind a load balancer ensures that if one server fails, traffic is automatically redirected to the remaining healthy node(s), achieving zero downtime for the application itself. This directly meets the requirement that the payment application must keep running if one application server fails. For the 5-minute RPO and 30-minute RTO during a site outage, near-real-time or synchronous database replication to a standby preserves recent transactions and allows fast failover, meeting the recovery objectives. Nightly backups or weekly snapshots cannot meet a 5-minute RPO because they introduce up to a day or week of lost data.
Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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