Free Practice Questions for Amazon Web Services SOA-C02 Exam

The requirement is to automate recovery if the service crashes on any of the EC2 instances.

Option A: Install the Amazon CloudWatch agent on the EC2 instances. Configure the CloudWatch agent to monitor the service. Set the CloudWatch action to restart if the service health check fails . This is a valid solution because the CloudWatch agent can be configured to monitor the service and take action (restart the service) if the health check fails .

Option C: Tag the EC2 instances. Use AWS Systems Manager State Manager to create an association that uses the AWS-RunShellScript document. Configure the association command with a script that checks if the service is running and that starts the service if the service is not running. For targets, specify the EC2 instance tag. Schedule the association to run every 5 minutes678. This is a valid solution because AWS Systems Manager State Manager can be used to maintain a consistent state of the EC2 instances. It can run a script to check if the service is running and start the service if it’s not running678.

Option B: Tag the EC2 instances. Create an AWS Lambda function that uses AWS Systems Manager Session Manager to log in to the tagged EC2 instances and restart the service. Schedule the Lambda function to run every 5 minutes . This is not a valid solution because AWS Lambda functions are not designed to log in to EC2 instances and restart services. They are used for running serverless applications.

Option D: Update the EC2 user data that is specified in the Auto Scaling group’s launch template to include a script that runs on a cron schedule every 5 minutes131415. This is not a valid solution because user data scripts are run only during the launch of an EC2 instance. They are not designed to run on a schedule.

Option E: Update the EC2 user data that is specified in the Auto Scaling group’s launch template to ensure that the service runs during startup. Redeploy all the EC2 instances in the Auto Scaling group with the updated launch template131416. This is not a valid solution because while user data can be used to ensure that the service runs during startup, it does not provide a solution for when the service crashes after the EC2 instance has started.

For high-performance computing (HPC) applications that require minimized network latency and maximized network throughput, the best strategy is to use a cluster placement group. Here’s why:

Cluster Placement Group:

Instances in a cluster placement group are placed within a single Availability Zone, which allows them to communicate using high-bandwidth, low-latency connections.

This is ideal for HPC workloads that require high network throughput and low latency.

To review the VPC configuration of developer AWS accounts securely, the best practice is to use cross-account IAM roles with read-only access.

Create an IAM Policy with Read-Only Access:

Navigate to the IAM console in each developer account.

Create a new policy with read-only access to VPC resources. For example:

"Version": "2012-10-17",

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Allow",

"Action": [

"ec2:DescribeVpcs",

"ec2:DescribeSubnets",

"ec2:DescribeRouteTables",

"ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups",

"ec2:DescribeNetworkAcls"

],

"Resource": "*"

}

]

}

Save the policy.

Create a Cross-Account IAM Role:

In the IAM console, choose "Roles" and then "Create role".

Select "Another AWS account" and enter the AWS account ID of the security administrator's account.

Attach the read-only policy created in step 1 to the role.

Save the role and note the role ARN.

Assume the Role from the Security Administrator's Account:

In the security administrator's account, navigate to the IAM console.

Use the "Switch Role" option to assume the cross-account role created in the developer account using the role ARN.

The security administrator can now access the VPC configuration of the developer accounts with read-only permissions.

Cross-Account Access

Creating and Managing IAM Policies

Using an RDS read replica will improve the performance and availability of the RDS instance by offloading read queries to the replica. This will also ensure that the reporting job completes in a timely manner and does not affect the performance of other queries that might be running on the RDS instance. Additionally, updating the reporting job to query the reader endpoint will ensure that all read queries are directed to the read replica.

To address high I/O requirements during the bootstrap process, increasing both IOPS and throughput on the EBS volume is recommended:

Increase EBS Volume IOPS: Enhances the instance’s ability to handle multiple read and write operations per second, essential for data-heavy tasks like downloading Docker images.

Increase EBS Volume Throughput: Provides higher data transfer rates, reducing bottlenecks during intensive I/O operations.

Increasing instance size is unnecessary if the primary issue is disk I/O, and changing from Nitro-based instances would not address the underlying storage performance need.

AWS Config can continuously monitor and record your AWS resource configurations. It provides AWS Config rules that automatically check the configuration of AWS resources and notify you of compliance and non-compliance.

Steps:

Enable AWS Config:

Open the AWS Config console.

Follow the steps to set up AWS Config if it is not already enabled.

Add AWS Managed Rules:

In the AWS Config console, choose "Rules".

Add the s3-bucket-public-read-prohibited managed rule.

Configure the rule to check all S3 buckets.

Set Up SNS Notifications:

Create an Amazon SNS topic.

Subscribe your email or other communication channels to the SNS topic.

In AWS Config, configure the rule to send notifications to the SNS topic whenever there is a compliance change.

This approach ensures operational efficiency as AWS Config will automatically monitor S3 buckets and notify you through SNS if any bucket becomes publicly accessible.

You can create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm that monitors an Amazon EC2 instance and automatically recovers the instance if it becomes impaired due to an underlying hardware failure or a problem that requires AWS involvement to repair. Terminated instances cannot be recovered. A recovered instance is identical to the original instance, including the instance ID, private IP addresses, Elastic IP addresses, and all instance metadata. If the impaired instance has a public IPv4 address, the instance retains the public IPv4 address after recovery. If the impaired instance is in a placement group, the recovered instance runs in the placement group. When the StatusCheckFailed_System alarm is triggered, and the recover action is initiated, you will be notified by the Amazon SNS topic that you selected when you created the alarm and associated the recover action. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-instance-recover.html

To ensure high availability and disaster recovery for the RDS for MySQL database, follow these steps:

Create a Cross-Region Read Replica:

In the RDS console, create a cross-Region read replica of the primary database instance. This read replica will provide high availability and the lowest RTO and RPO in case of a disaster.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-enable-secure-access-to-kibana-using-aws-single-sign-on/

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticsearch-service/latest/developerguide/es-cognito-auth.html

To monitor and remediate open SSH ports, AWS Config and Systems Manager Automation are ideal:

AWS Config Rule: Use AWS Config to monitor security groups and detect when SSH (port 22) is open to the public. Config rules can be set up to trigger remediation actions automatically.

Systems Manager Automation Runbook: Create or use a predefined automation runbook that can remove the open SSH rule from security groups, thus closing port 22 to the public.

CloudWatch alarms are not ideal for monitoring security group configurations. Amazon Inspector focuses on vulnerability assessment rather than continuous monitoring for specific port access.