Amazon SOA-C02 Practice Exams
Last updated on Oct 23,2026- Exam Code: SOA-C02
- Exam Name: AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate
- Certification Provider: Amazon
- Latest update: Oct 23,2026
A SysOps administrator is notified that an Amazon EC2 instance has stopped responding The AWS Management Console indicates that the system status checks are failing.
What should the administrator do first to resolve this issue?
- A . Reboot the EC2 instance so it can be launched on a new host
- B . Stop and then start the EC2 instance so that it can be launched on a new host
- C . Terminate the EC2 instance and relaunch it
- D . View the AWS CloudTrail log to investigate what changed on the EC2 instance
B
Explanation:
When an EC2 instance stops responding and the system status checks are failing, the recommended first step is to stop and then start the instance. This action will cause the instance to be moved to a new host, potentially resolving the underlying hardware issue.
Stop and Start the Instance:
In the AWS Management Console, navigate to the EC2 dashboard and stop the affected instance.
After the instance has stopped, start it again to launch it on a new host.
Reference: Instance Status Checks
Monitor Instance:
After restarting, monitor the instance to ensure that it is functioning correctly and that the system status checks pass.
This approach is often effective in resolving hardware-related issues.
A recent audit found that most resources belonging to the development team were in violation of patch compliance standards The resources were properly tagged.
Which service should be used to quickly remediate the issue and bring the resources back into compliance?
- A . AWS Config
- B . Amazon Inspector
- C . AWS Trusted Advisor
- D . AWS Systems Manager
D
Explanation:
To quickly remediate resources and bring them back into compliance with patch standards, AWS Systems Manager is the appropriate service to use.
Use AWS Systems Manager:
Leverage Systems Manager Patch Manager to automate the process of patching managed instances.
Use Systems Manager State Manager to ensure that resources remain in compliance with the desired configurations.
Reference: AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager
Reference: AWS Systems Manager State Manager
Tag-Based Management:
Utilize the tagging information to target the development team’s resources specifically for patching and compliance management.
Reference: Tagging Systems Manager Resources
This solution allows for efficient and automated remediation of compliance issues.
A company hosts a production MySQL database on an Amazon Aurora single-node DB cluster. The database is queried heavily for reporting purposes. The DB cluster is experiencing periods of performance degradation because of high CPU utilization and maximum connections errors. A SysOps administrator needs to improve the stability of the database.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A . Create an Aurora Replica node. Create an Auto Scaling policy to scale replicas based on CPU utilization. Ensure that all reporting requests use the read-only connection string.
- B . Create a second Aurora MySQL single-node DB cluster in a second Availability Zone. Ensure that all reporting requests use the connection string for this additional node.
- C . Create an AWS Lambda function that caches reporting requests. Ensure that all reporting requests call the Lambda function.
- D . Create a multi-node Amazon ElastiCache cluster. Ensure that all reporting requests use the ElastiCache cluster. Use the database if the data is not in the cache.
A
Explanation:
To alleviate performance degradation on a heavily queried Amazon Aurora DB cluster:
A: Create an Aurora Replica node and implement an Auto Scaling policy based on CPU utilization. Ensure all reporting requests use the read-only connection string to redirect read queries to the replica. This setup alleviates the load on the primary DB instance by balancing read traffic, which can significantly improve stability during periods of high demand. Aurora Replicas are ideal for scaling read operations and can improve the performance of the primary instance by offloading read requests. More details on Aurora Replicas and their benefits can be found in the AWS documentation on Aurora Replicas Amazon Aurora Replicas.
A company hosts a production MySQL database on an Amazon Aurora single-node DB cluster. The database is queried heavily for reporting purposes. The DB cluster is experiencing periods of performance degradation because of high CPU utilization and maximum connections errors. A SysOps administrator needs to improve the stability of the database.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A . Create an Aurora Replica node. Create an Auto Scaling policy to scale replicas based on CPU utilization. Ensure that all reporting requests use the read-only connection string.
- B . Create a second Aurora MySQL single-node DB cluster in a second Availability Zone. Ensure that all reporting requests use the connection string for this additional node.
- C . Create an AWS Lambda function that caches reporting requests. Ensure that all reporting requests call the Lambda function.
- D . Create a multi-node Amazon ElastiCache cluster. Ensure that all reporting requests use the ElastiCache cluster. Use the database if the data is not in the cache.
A
Explanation:
To alleviate performance degradation on a heavily queried Amazon Aurora DB cluster:
A: Create an Aurora Replica node and implement an Auto Scaling policy based on CPU utilization. Ensure all reporting requests use the read-only connection string to redirect read queries to the replica. This setup alleviates the load on the primary DB instance by balancing read traffic, which can significantly improve stability during periods of high demand. Aurora Replicas are ideal for scaling read operations and can improve the performance of the primary instance by offloading read requests. More details on Aurora Replicas and their benefits can be found in the AWS documentation on Aurora Replicas Amazon Aurora Replicas.
A company uses AWS Organizations. A SysOps administrator wants to use AWS Compute Optimizer and AWS tag policies in the management account to govern all member accounts in the billing family. The SysOps administrator navigates to the AWS Organizations console but cannot activate tag policies through the management account.
What could be the reason for this issue?
- A . All features have not been enabled in the organization.
- B . Consolidated billing has not been enabled.
- C . The member accounts do not have tags enabled for cost allocation.
- D . The member accounts have not manually enabled trusted access for Compute Optimizer.
A
Explanation:
AWS Organizations offers features that help manage multiple AWS accounts. To use AWS Compute Optimizer and AWS tag policies across all member accounts, the organization must have all features enabled.
Enable All Features in AWS Organizations:
Open the AWS Organizations console at AWS Organizations Console. Navigate to Settings and ensure that All features are enabled.
Verify and Enable Trusted Access:
Ensure that trusted access is enabled for AWS Compute Optimizer and other relevant services.
This allows the management account to access and manage resources in member accounts.
Use AWS Compute Optimizer and Tag Policies:
Once all features are enabled, configure and manage AWS Compute Optimizer and tag policies from the management account.
Reference: AWS Organizations
Enabling All Features in Your Organization
Enabling Trusted Access with Other AWS Services
A company uses AWS Organizations. A SysOps administrator wants to use AWS Compute Optimizer and AWS tag policies in the management account to govern all member accounts in the billing family. The SysOps administrator navigates to the AWS Organizations console but cannot activate tag policies through the management account.
What could be the reason for this issue?
- A . All features have not been enabled in the organization.
- B . Consolidated billing has not been enabled.
- C . The member accounts do not have tags enabled for cost allocation.
- D . The member accounts have not manually enabled trusted access for Compute Optimizer.
A
Explanation:
AWS Organizations offers features that help manage multiple AWS accounts. To use AWS Compute Optimizer and AWS tag policies across all member accounts, the organization must have all features enabled.
Enable All Features in AWS Organizations:
Open the AWS Organizations console at AWS Organizations Console. Navigate to Settings and ensure that All features are enabled.
Verify and Enable Trusted Access:
Ensure that trusted access is enabled for AWS Compute Optimizer and other relevant services.
This allows the management account to access and manage resources in member accounts.
Use AWS Compute Optimizer and Tag Policies:
Once all features are enabled, configure and manage AWS Compute Optimizer and tag policies from the management account.
Reference: AWS Organizations
Enabling All Features in Your Organization
Enabling Trusted Access with Other AWS Services
A new website will run on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. Amazon Route 53 will be used to manage DNS records.
What type of record should be set in Route 53 to point the website’s apex domain name (for example.company.com to the Application Load Balancer?
- A . CNAME
- B . SOA
- C . TXT
- D . ALIAS
D
Explanation:
When using Amazon Route 53 to manage DNS records for a website hosted behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB), an ALIAS record should be used for the apex domain (e.g., example.com). ALIAS records are designed to map domain names to AWS resources like ALBs, CloudFront distributions, and S3 buckets, providing efficient DNS resolution.
Login to AWS Management Console:
Open the Route 53 console at Amazon Route 53 Console.
Select Hosted Zone:
Select the hosted zone for your domain.
Create Record Set:
Click on Create record.
In the Record name field, leave it blank to indicate the apex domain.
Select ALIAS as the record type.
Choose the Alias Target to be your Application Load Balancer from the dropdown menu.
Save Record Set:
Review the settings and click Create records.
Reference: Choosing Between Alias and Non-Alias Records
Routing Traffic to an ELB Load Balancer
The SysOps administrator must modify the AWS Config rule that deletes noncompliant SSH inbound rules to update the rule to allow SSH from specific trusted IP addresses instead.
- A . Create a new AWS Systems Manager Automation runbook that adds an IP set to the security group’s inbound rule. Update the AWS Config rule to change the automatic remediation action to use the new runbook.
- B . Create a new AWS Systems Manager Automation runbook that updates the security group’s inbound rule with the IP addresses from the business units. Update the AWS Config rule to change the automatic remediation action to use the new runbook.
- C . Create an AWS Lambda function that adds an IP set to the security group’s inbound rule. Update the AWS Config rule to change the automatic remediation action to use the Lambda function.
- D . Create an AWS Lambda function that updates the security group’s inbound rule with the IP addresses from the business units. Update the AWS Config rule to change the automatic remediation action to use the Lambda function.
B
Explanation:
Using a Systems Manager Automation runbook is appropriate for managing security group rules within the AWS Config remediation framework. A runbook provides a reusable, automated solution that can update the security group rule based on an IP list.
Automation Runbook for Security Group Updates: A runbook can automate security group modifications, such as adding the trusted IP addresses specified by the business units.
AWS Config Integration: Config rules can be set to use this runbook for automatic remediation, ensuring that the rule is updated without deleting it, which aligns with the requirement for SSH
access from specific IPs.
Lambda functions could work but would require additional customization and complexity, making the runbook a more manageable and scalable solution for this task.
A company creates custom AMI images by launching new Amazon EC2 instances from an AWS CloudFormation template it installs and configure necessary software through AWS OpsWorks and takes images of each EC2 instance. The process of installing and configuring software can take between 2 to 3 hours but at limes the process stalls due to installation errors.
The SysOps administrator must modify the CloudFormation template so if the process stalls, the entire stack will tail and roil back.
Based on these requirements what should be added to the template?
- A . Conditions with a timeout set to 4 hours.
- B . CreationPolicy with timeout set to 4 hours.
- C . DependsOn a timeout set to 4 hours.
- D . Metadata with a timeout set to 4 hours
B
Explanation:
To ensure that the CloudFormation stack fails and rolls back if the process stalls, you should add a CreationPolicy with a timeout set to 4 hours to the CloudFormation template.
CreationPolicy:
The CreationPolicy attribute enables you to specify how long CloudFormation should wait for a resource to be created or updated.
You can use this to ensure that the instance completes its software installation process within a specified period.
Adding CreationPolicy to the Template:
Add the CreationPolicy attribute to the EC2 resource in the CloudFormation template.
Set the Timeout to 4 hours (PT4H).
Example:
Resources:
MyInstance:
Type: ‘AWS::EC2::Instance’
Properties:
InstanceType: t2.micro
ImageId: ami-0abcdef1234567890
CreationPolicy:
ResourceSignal:
Count: 1
Timeout: PT4H
Ensuring Rollback:
If the instance does not signal success within the specified timeout, CloudFormation will mark the stack as failed and roll back the changes.
Reference: AWS CloudFormation CreationPolicy
Using Creation Policies with CloudFormation
A company runs a single-page web application on AWS The application uses Amazon CloudFront lo deliver static content from an Amazon S3 bucket origin The application also uses an Amazon Elastic Kubemetes Service (Amazon EKS) duster to serve API calls
Users sometimes report that the website is not operational, even when monitoring shows that the index page is reachable and that the EKS cluster is healthy. A SysOps administrator must Implement additional monitoring that can delect when the website is not operational before users report the problem.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A . Create an Amazon CloudWatch Synthetics heartbeat monitor canary that points to the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the website.
- B . Create an Amazon CloudWatch Synthetics API canary that monitors the availability of API endpoints from the EKS cluster.
- C . Create an Amazon CloudWatch RUM app monitor that points to the fully qualified domain name
(FQDN) of the website. Configure the app monitor to collect performance telemetry and JavaScript errors - D . Create an Amazon CloudWatch RUM app monitor that uses the API endpoints from the EKS cluster
A
Explanation:
Amazon CloudWatch Synthetics:
CloudWatch Synthetics allows you to create canaries to monitor your endpoints and API calls, simulating user behavior to detect issues before users do.
Steps:
Go to the AWS Management Console.
Navigate to CloudWatch and select "Synthetics."
Click on "Create canary."
Choose "Heartbeat monitoring" as the blueprint.
Configure the canary to point to the FQDN of the website.
Set the frequency and retention settings as per your requirement.
Create the canary.
This setup continuously checks the operational status of your website, alerting you if it becomes unreachable or has issues.
Reference: AWS CloudWatch Synthetics