A company uses Amazon EC2 instances and Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes to run an application. The company creates one snapshot of each EBS volume every day to meet compliance requirements. The company wants to implement an architecture that prevents the accidental deletion of EBS volume snapshots. The solution must not change the administrative rights of the storage administrator user.
Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST administrative effort?
A. Create an IAM role that has permission to delete snapshots. Attach the role to a new EC2 instance. Use the AWS CLI from the new EC2 instance to delete snapshots.
B. Create an IAM policy that denies snapshot deletion. Attach the policy to the storage administrator user.
C. Add tags to the snapshots. Create retention rules in Recycle Bin for EBS snapshots that have the tags.
D. Lock the EBS snapshots to prevent deletion.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: D
Explanation: Amazon EBS Snapshot Lock is designed to prevent snapshots from being deleted before a configured lock period expires, including by administrators with delete permissions. This meets the requirement to prevent accidental deletion without changing the storage administrator's IAM permissions and requires minimal administrative effort. Options A and B change access patterns or permissions, and Recycle Bin (C) allows recovery after deletion but does not prevent deletion itself.
Question 346
A company runs a web application on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. The application uses a database that runs on an Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL DB instance. The application performs slowly when traffic increases. The database experiences a heavy read load during periods of high traffic.
Which actions should a solutions architect take to resolve these performance issues? (Choose two.)
A. Turn on auto scaling for the DB instance.
B. Create a read replica for the DB instance. Configure the application to send read traffic to the read replica.
C. Convert the DB instance to a Multi-AZ DB instance deployment. Configure the application to send read traffic to the standby DB instance.
D. Create an Amazon ElastiCache cluster. Configure the application to cache query results in the ElastiCache cluster.
E. Configure the Auto Scaling group subnets to ensure that the EC2 instances are provisioned in the same Availability Zone as the DB instance.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B, D
Explanation: The bottleneck is heavy read traffic on Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL. Creating a read replica allows the application to offload read queries from the primary instance, improving read scalability. Adding Amazon ElastiCache reduces repeated database reads by serving frequently requested data from an in-memory cache. Auto Scaling does not scale RDS compute instances (storage auto scaling is unrelated), a Multi-AZ standby cannot serve read traffic, and placing EC2 instances in the same AZ does not address database read load.
Question 347
A company runs an SMB file server in its data center. The file server stores large files that the company frequently accesses for up to 7 days after the file creation date. After 7 days, the company needs to be able to access the files with a maximum retrieval time of 24 hours.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
A. Use AWS DataSync to copy data that is older than 7 days from the SMB file server to AWS.
B. Create an Amazon S3 File Gateway to increase the company's storage space. Create an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition the data to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 7 days.
C. Create an Amazon FSx File Gateway to increase the company's storage space. Create an Amazon S3 Lifecycle policy to transition the data after 7 days.
D. Configure access to Amazon S3 for each user. Create an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition the data to S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval after 7 days.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: Amazon S3 File Gateway presents an SMB/NFS file share backed by Amazon S3, allowing users to continue accessing files over SMB. An S3 Lifecycle policy can transition objects older than 7 days to S3 Glacier Deep Archive. Glacier Deep Archive supports retrieval within the required maximum of 24 hours (standard retrieval is within 12 hours). DataSync is for transfer, not transparent file access, FSx File Gateway is backed by Amazon FSx rather than S3 lifecycle storage, and option D does not preserve SMB access or describe ingestion.
Question 348
A marketing company receives a large amount of new clickstream data in Amazon S3 from a marketing campaign. The company needs to analyze the clickstream data in Amazon S3 quickly. Then the company needs to determine whether to process the data further in the data pipeline.
Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?
A. Create external tables in a Spark catalog. Configure jobs in AWS Glue to query the data.
B. Configure an AWS Glue crawler to crawl the data. Configure Amazon Athena to query the data.
C. Create external tables in a Hive metastore. Configure Spark jobs in Amazon EMR to query the data.
D. Configure an AWS Glue crawler to crawl the data. Configure Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics to use SQL to query the data.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: AWS Glue crawlers automatically discover the schema and populate the AWS Glue Data Catalog for data stored in Amazon S3. Amazon Athena is a serverless interactive query service that can immediately query S3 data using SQL with minimal setup and no infrastructure to manage. EMR/Spark and Hive require cluster management, and Kinesis Data Analytics is intended for streaming data rather than querying batch data already stored in S3.
Question 349
A company runs its applications on Amazon EC2 instances. The company performs periodic financial assessments of its AWS costs. The company recently identified unusual spending.
The company needs a solution to prevent unusual spending. The solution must monitor costs and notify responsible stakeholders in the event of unusual spending.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
A. Use an AWS Budgets template to create a zero spend budget.
B. Create an AWS Cost Anomaly Detection monitor in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console.
C. Create AWS Pricing Calculator estimates for the current running workload pricing details.
D. Use Amazon CloudWatch to monitor costs and to identify unusual spending.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: AWS Cost Anomaly Detection uses machine learning to continuously monitor AWS spend, detect unusual cost patterns, and send alerts to designated stakeholders. AWS Budgets tracks budget thresholds rather than detecting anomalies, AWS Pricing Calculator is for estimating costs before deployment, and Amazon CloudWatch does not directly monitor AWS billing anomalies.
Question 350
A company performs tests on an application that uses an Amazon DynamoDB table. The tests run for 4 hours once a week. The company knows how many read and write operations the application performs to the table each second during the tests. The company does not currently use DynamoDB for any other use case. A solutions architect needs to optimize the costs for the table.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
A. Choose on-demand mode. Update the read and write capacity units appropriately.
B. Choose provisioned mode. Update the read and write capacity units appropriately.
C. Purchase DynamoDB reserved capacity for a 1-year term.
D. Purchase DynamoDB reserved capacity for a 3-year term.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: Provisioned capacity is the best fit because the workload is predictable: the company knows the required read/write throughput during the weekly 4-hour test window. In provisioned mode, the table's RCUs/WCUs can be increased before testing and reduced afterward (or managed with scheduled scaling), minimizing cost while meeting performance. Option A is incorrect because on-demand mode does not use manually configured read/write capacity units. Reserved capacity (C/D) is intended for long-term consistently provisioned capacity and is not cost-effective for a workload that runs only a few hours each week.
Question 351
A startup company is hosting a website for its customers on an Amazon EC2 instance. The website consists of a stateless Python application and a MySQL database. The website serves only a small amount of traffic. The company is concerned about the reliability of the instance and needs to migrate to a highly available architecture. The company cannot modify the application code.
Which combination of actions should a solutions architect take to achieve high availability for the website? (Choose two.)
A. Provision an internet gateway in each Availability Zone in use.
B. Migrate the database to an Amazon RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ DB instance.
C. Migrate the database to Amazon DynamoDB, and enable DynamoDB auto scaling.
D. Use AWS DataSync to synchronize the database data across multiple EC2 instances.
E. Create an Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic to an Auto Scaling group of EC2 instances that are distributed across two Availability Zones.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B, E
Explanation: Use Amazon RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ to provide high availability and automatic failover for the MySQL database without changing application code. Because the application is stateless, place EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group spanning two Availability Zones behind an Application Load Balancer to provide highly available application hosting. An internet gateway is attached to a VPC, not per Availability Zone. Migrating to DynamoDB would require application changes, and DataSync is not a high-availability database replication solution.
Question 352
A company has customers located across the world. The company wants to use automation to secure its systems and network infrastructure. The company's security team must be able to track and audit all incremental changes to the infrastructure.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
A. Use AWS Organizations to set up the infrastructure. Use AWS Config to track changes.
B. Use AWS CloudFormation to set up the infrastructure. Use AWS Config to track changes.
C. Use AWS Organizations to set up the infrastructure. Use AWS Service Catalog to track changes.
D. Use AWS CloudFormation to set up the infrastructure. Use AWS Service Catalog to track changes.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: AWS CloudFormation provides infrastructure as code for automated, repeatable provisioning of systems and network infrastructure. AWS Config continuously records configuration changes to AWS resources, enabling tracking, auditing, and compliance over time. AWS Organizations manages multiple AWS accounts, not infrastructure provisioning, and AWS Service Catalog governs approved products rather than tracking incremental infrastructure changes.
Question 353
A company is relocating its data center and wants to securely transfer 50 TB of data to AWS within 2 weeks. The existing data center has a Site-to-Site VPN connection to AWS that is 90% utilized.
Which AWS service should a solutions architect use to meet these requirements?
A. AWS DataSync with a VPC endpoint
B. AWS Direct Connect
C. AWS Snowball Edge Storage Optimized
D. AWS Storage Gateway
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation: AWS Snowball Edge Storage Optimized is designed for secure offline transfer of large datasets when existing network connectivity is constrained. The Site-to-Site VPN is already 90% utilized, making network-based options like DataSync impractical. Direct Connect typically requires provisioning time and may not be available within the required two-week window. Storage Gateway is for hybrid storage access, not bulk one-time migration.
Question 354
A company runs a web application on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group that has a target group. The company designed the application to work with session affinity (sticky sessions) for a better user experience.
The application must be available publicly over the internet as an endpoint. A WAF must be applied to the endpoint for additional security. Session affinity (sticky sessions) must be configured on the endpoint.
Which combination of steps will meet these requirements? (Choose two.)
A. Create a public Network Load Balancer. Specify the application target group.
B. Create a Gateway Load Balancer. Specify the application target group.
C. Create a public Application Load Balancer. Specify the application target group.
D. Create a second target group. Add Elastic IP addresses to the EC2 instances.
E. Create a web ACL in AWS WAF. Associate the web ACL with the endpoint
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C, E
Explanation: A public Application Load Balancer is the appropriate internet-facing endpoint for a web application that requires cookie-based session affinity (sticky sessions) with an EC2 Auto Scaling target group. AWS WAF integrates with an Application Load Balancer by associating a web ACL to the ALB, providing the required application-layer protection. A Gateway Load Balancer is for virtual appliances, not web traffic distribution. A second target group with Elastic IPs is unrelated. Although Network Load Balancer supports some forms of stickiness, ALB is the appropriate choice here because of its application-layer features and WAF integration.
$19
Get all 1004 questions with detailed answers and explanations
Instant download HTML + PDF delivered the moment payment clears.
Secure Stripe checkout we never see or store your card details.
7-day refund if files are defective see our refund policy.