Amazon Amazon Certifications SOA-C02 Questions & Answers

• Question 111:

  A company's SysOps administrator maintains a highly available environment. The environment includes Amazon EC2 instances and an Amazon RDS Multi-AZ database. The EC2 instances are in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer.

  Recently, the company conducted a failover test. The SysOps administrator needs to decrease the failover time of the RDS database by at least 10%.

  Which solution will meet this requirement?

  A. Increase the RDS instance size.

  B. Modify the RDS cluster to run in a single Availability Zone.

  C. Create a read replica in another AWS Region. Promote the read replica in case of failure.

  D. Create an RDS proxy. Point the application to the proxy endpoint.

  Correct Answer: D

  Option D (Create an RDS proxy. Point the application to the proxy endpoint) is the correct solution for decreasing failover time. An RDS proxy acts as an intermediate layer between the application and the RDS database. It allows for fast and automated failover during Multi-AZ database failover scenarios. When a failover occurs, the RDS proxy automatically connects the application to the new primary instance, reducing the time it takes for the application to be back online.

  By using an RDS proxy, the failover time is reduced because the proxy maintains connections to both the primary and standby database instances. It also automatically routes the connections to the healthy instance, making the failover process seamless for the application.

• Question 112:

  An errant process is known to use an entire processor and run at 100%. A SysOps administrator wants to automate restarting an Amazon EC2 instance when the problem occurs for more than 2 minutes.

  How can this be accomplished?

  A. Create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm for the EC2 instance with basic monitoring. Add an action to restart the instance.

  B. Create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm for the EC2 instance with detailed monitoring. Add an action to restart the instance.

  C. Create an AWS Lambda function to restart the EC2 instance, invoked on a scheduled basis every 2 minutes.

  D. Create an AWS Lambda function to restart the EC2 instance, invoked by EC2 health checks.

  Correct Answer: B

  Basic monitoring is 5 minutes interval Detailed monitoring is 1 minute interval https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/cloudwatch-metrics-basic-detailed.html

• Question 113:

  Users are periodically experiencing slow response times from a relational database. The database runs on a burstable Amazon EC2 instance with a 350 GB General Purpose SSD (gp2) Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume. A SysOps administrator monitors the EC2 instance in Amazon CloudWatch and observes that the VolumeReadOps metric drops to less than 10% of its peak value during the periods of slow response.

  What should the SysOps administrator do to ensure consistently high performance?

  A. Convert the gp2 volume to a General Purpose SSD (gp3) EBS volume.

  B. Convert the gp2 volume to a Cold HDD (sc1) EBS volume.

  C. Convert the EC2 instance to a memory optimized instance type.

  D. Activate unlimited mode on the EC2 instance.

  Correct Answer: A

  Option A (Convert the gp2 volume to a General Purpose SSD (gp3) EBS volume) is the correct option. The gp2 EBS volume type is designed for general-purpose workloads and provides a baseline performance and burst credits. The burst credits allow the volume to burst above the baseline performance when needed but are limited in capacity. If the volume depletes its burst credits, the performance can decrease, resulting in slow response times.

  On the other hand, gp3 is the next-generation general-purpose SSD EBS volume type that provides higher baseline performance, higher burst performance, and a new feature called "provisioned IOPS" that allows you to provision a consistent level of IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) independent of volume size.

  By converting the gp2 volume to a gp3 volume, you will get higher baseline performance, which can help ensure consistently high performance for the database during periods of increased workload without relying solely on burst credits.

• Question 114:

  A SysOps administrator wants to monitor the free disk space that is available on a set of Amazon EC2 instances that have Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes attached. The SysOps administrator wants to receive a notification when the used disk space of the EBS volumes exceeds a threshold value, but only when the DiskReadOps metric also exceeds a threshold value. The SysOps administrator has set up an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic.

  How can the SysOps administrator receive notification only when both metrics exceed their threshold values?

  A. Install the Amazon CloudWatch agent on the EC2 instances. Create a metric alarm for the disk space and a metric alarm for the DiskReadOps metric. Create a composite alarm that includes the two metric alarms to publish a notification to the SNS topic.

  B. Install the Amazon CloudWatch agent on the EC2 instances. Create a metric alarm for the disk space and a metric alarm for the DiskReadOps metric. Configure each alarm to publish a notification to the SNS topic.

  C. Create a metric alarm for the EBSByteBalance% metric and a metric alarm for the DiskReadOps metric. Create a composite alarm that includes the two metric alarms to publish a notification to the SNS topic.

  D. Configure detailed monitoring for the EC2 instances. Create a metric alarm for the disk space and a metric alarm for the DiskReadOps metric. Create a composite alarm that includes the two metric alarms to publish a notification to the SNS topic.

  Correct Answer: A

  To receive a notification only when both metrics exceed their threshold values, the SysOps administrator should follow these steps:

  Install the Amazon CloudWatch agent on the EC2 instances.

  Configure detailed monitoring for the EC2 instances.

  Create a metric alarm for the DiskReadOps metric and set a threshold value for it.

  Create a metric alarm for the free disk space and set a threshold value for it.

  Create a composite alarm that includes the two metric alarms, and set a threshold value for it.

  Configure the composite alarm to publish a notification to the SNS topic when it is triggered.

• Question 115:

  An ecommerce company has built a web application that uses an Amazon Aurora DB cluster. The DB cluster includes memory optimized instance types with both a writer node and a reader node. Traffic volume changes throughout the day.

  During sudden traffic surges, Amazon CloudWatch metrics for the DB cluster indicate high RAM consumption and an increase in select latency.

  A SysOps administrator must implement a configuration change to improve the performance of the DB cluster. The change must minimize downtime and must not result in the loss of data.

  Which change will meet these requirements?

  A. Add an Aurora Replica to the DB cluster.

  B. Modify the DB cluster to convert the DB cluster into a multi-master DB cluster.

  C. Take a snapshot of the DB cluster. From that snapshot, create a new DB cluster that has larger memory optimized instances.

  D. Increase the disk storage capacity of the DB cluster to double the existing disk capacity.

  Correct Answer: A

  To improve the performance of the Aurora DB cluster, while minimizing downtime and without losing data, option A - adding an Aurora Replica to the DB cluster, is the best choice.

  Adding an Aurora Replica would create a new reader node in the cluster, which can help distribute the load during sudden traffic surges, and reduce the select latency. This can also help reduce RAM consumption on the writer node. Additionally, adding a replica can be done with minimal downtime, as it does not require any changes to the application, and data will be automatically replicated from the writer node to the new replica.

• Question 116:

  A SysOps administrator is investigating a company's web application for performance problems. The application runs on Amazon EC2 instances that are in an Auto Scaling group. The application receives large traffic increases at random times throughout the day. During periods of rapid traffic increases, the Auto Scaling group is not adding capacity fast enough. As a result, users are experiencing poor performance.

  The company wants to minimize costs without adversely affecting the user experience when web traffic surges quickly. The company needs a solution that adds more capacity to the Auto Scaling group for larger traffic increases than for smaller traffic increases.

  How should the SysOps administrator configure the Auto Scaling group to meet these requirements?

  A. Create a simple scaling policy with settings to make larger adjustments in capacity when the system is under heavy load.

  B. Create a step scaling policy with settings to make larger adjustments in capacity when the system is under heavy load.

  C. Create a target tracking scaling policy with settings to make larger adjustments in capacity when the system is under heavy load.

  D. Use Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling lifecycle hooks. Adjust the Auto Scaling group's maximum number of instances after every scaling event.

  Correct Answer: B

  The correct answer is B. Create a step scaling policy with settings to make larger adjustments in capacity when the system is under heavy load.

  Step scaling policies are suitable for scenarios where you want to add more capacity to the Auto Scaling group as the traffic increases. With step scaling policies, you can define specific thresholds for different levels of traffic and configure the

  scaling adjustments accordingly. This allows you to add more capacity during larger traffic increases while minimizing costs during smaller traffic increases.

  Option A (Create a simple scaling policy) might not be the best choice as it does not provide the granularity needed to handle larger traffic increases differently from smaller ones.

• Question 117:

  A SysOps administrator is reviewing VPC Flow Logs to troubleshoot connectivity issues in a VPC. While reviewing the logs, the SysOps administrator notices that rejected traffic is not listed. What should the SysOps administrator do to ensure that all traffic is logged?

  A. Create a new flow log that has a filter setting to capture all traffic.

  B. Create a new flow log. Set the log record format to a custom format. Select the proper fields to include in the log.

  C. Edit the existing flow log. Change the filter setting to capture all traffic.

  D. Edit the existing flow log. Set the log record format to a custom format. Select the proper fields to include in the log.

  Correct Answer: A

  Flow logs can help you with a number of tasks, such as: Diagnosing overly restrictive security group rules Monitoring the traffic that is reaching your instance Determining the direction of the traffic to and from the network interfaces Flow log data is collected outside of the path of your network traffic, and therefore does not affect network throughput or latency. You can create or delete flow logs without any risk of impact to network performance.

• Question 118:

  A company runs an encrypted Amazon RDS for Oracle DB instance. The company wants to make regular backups available in another AWS Region. What is the MOST operationally efficient solution that meets these requirements?

  A. Modify the DB instance. Enable cross-Region automated backups.

  B. Create an RDS read replica in another Region. Create a snapshot of the read replica.

  C. Use AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) to copy the data to a DB instance in another Region.

  D. Temporarily turn off encryption on the DB instance. Take a snapshot. Copy the snapshot to another Region.

  Correct Answer: A

  https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_ReplicateBackups.html#AutomatedBackups.Replicating.Enable

• Question 119:

  A SysOps administrator creates a new VPC that includes a public subnet and a private subnet. The SysOps administrator successfully launches 11 Amazon EC2 instances in the private subnet. The SysOps administrator attempts to launch one more EC2 instance in the same subnet. However, the SysOps administrator receives an error message that states that not enough free IP addresses are available.

  What must the SysOps administrator do to deploy more EC2 instances?

  A. Edit the private subnet to change the CIDR block to /27.

  B. Edit the private subnet to extend across a second Availability Zone.

  C. Assign additional Elastic IP addresses to the private subnet.

  D. Create a new private subnet to hold the required EC2 instances.

  Correct Answer: D

  Add an additional IPv4 CIDR block as a secondary CIDR to your VPC.

  Create a new VPC with your preferred CIDR block and then migrate the resources from your old VPC to the new VPC (if applicable).

• Question 120:

  A company has a workload that is sending log data to Amazon CloudWatch Logs. One of the fields includes a measure of application latency. A SysOps administrator needs to monitor the p90 statistic of this field over time.

  What should the SysOps administrator do to meet this requirement?

  A. Create an Amazon CloudWatch Contributor Insights rule on the log data.

  B. Create a metric filter on the log data.

  C. Create a subscription filter on the log data.

  D. Create an Amazon CloudWatch Application Insights rule for the workload.

  Correct Answer: B

  Statistics are metric data aggregations over specified periods of time. When you graph or retrieve the statistics for a metric, you specify the Period of time, such as five minutes, to use to calculate each statistical value. For example, if the Period is five minutes, the Sum is the sum of all sample values collected during the five-minute period, while the Minimum is the lowest value collected during the five-minute period.

  Percentile (p) indicates the relative standing of a value in a dataset. For example, p95 is the 95th percentile and means that 95 percent of the data within the period is lower than this value and 5 percent of the data is higher than this value. Percentiles help you get a better understanding of the distribution of your metric data.