Amazon SOA-C03 Exam - Topic 2 Question 6 Discussion

Actual exam question for Amazon's SOA-C03 exam

Question #: 6
Topic #: 2

A company runs an application on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) in an Auto Scaling group. The application performs well except during a 2-hour period of daily peak traffic, when performance slows.

A CloudOps engineer must resolve this issue with minimal operational effort.

What should the engineer do?

AAdjust the minimum capacity of the Auto Scaling group to the size required to meet the increased demand during the 2-hour period.

BAdjust the launch template that is associated with the Auto Scaling group to be more sensitive to increases in user traffic.

CCreate a scheduled scaling action to scale out the number of EC2 instances shortly before the increase in user traffic occurs.

DManually add a few more EC2 instances to the Auto Scaling group to support the increase in user traffic. Enable instance scale-in protection on the Auto Scaling group.

Show Suggested Answer

Suggested Answer: C

According to the AWS Cloud Operations and Compute documentation, when workloads exhibit predictable traffic patterns, the best practice is to use scheduled scaling for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling groups.

With scheduled scaling, administrators can predefine the desired capacity of an Auto Scaling group to increase before anticipated demand (in this case, before the 2-hour peak) and scale back down afterward. This ensures that sufficient compute capacity is provisioned proactively, avoiding performance degradation while maintaining cost efficiency.

AWS notes: ''Scheduled actions enable scaling your Auto Scaling group at predictable times, allowing you to pre-warm instances before demand spikes.''

Manual scaling (Option D) adds operational overhead. Adjusting launch templates (Option B) doesn't affect scaling behavior, and permanently increasing minimum capacity (Option A) wastes resources outside of peak hours.

Thus, Option C provides an automated, cost-effective, and operationally efficient CloudOps solution.

by Cassie at Oct 27, 2025, 05:04 PM

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Margart

9 days ago

I feel D is too manual. We need automation, not extra work.

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Jimmie

14 days ago

Option A could work, but it might waste resources during off-peak.

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Tyra

19 days ago

I agree, C makes sense. Preemptive scaling is key for peak times.

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Wenona

24 days ago

Wait, can we really just adjust the launch template?

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Alisha

29 days ago

I think A is more efficient long-term.

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Eric

1 month ago

C seems like the best option for peak times!

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Alyce

1 month ago

A) is a good option, but it may lead to over-provisioning during non-peak times.

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Kerry

1 month ago

Haha, I bet the engineer is wishing they had a crystal ball to predict the traffic patterns!

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James

2 months ago

D) is not ideal, as manual scaling is more effort and doesn't automatically scale back down after the peak.

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Markus

2 months ago

B) is not the right solution, as adjusting the launch template won't address the specific issue of peak traffic.

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Jade

2 months ago

I’m a bit confused about the launch template adjustment in option B. Wouldn’t that require more ongoing management?

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Justine

2 months ago

I practiced a similar question, and I feel like manually adding instances could lead to more operational overhead, so I’d lean towards option C too.

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Whitley

3 months ago

C) is the correct answer. Scheduled scaling is the best way to handle predictable traffic spikes.

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Martha

3 months ago

I think option C is the best. Scheduled scaling is efficient.

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Mitzie

3 months ago

D is too manual, not scalable enough.

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Kathrine

3 months ago

I didn't know scheduled scaling was a thing!

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Gerry

3 months ago

I'm not entirely sure, but I remember something about adjusting the minimum capacity might not be the best approach for just a short peak.

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Naomi

4 months ago

I think option C makes the most sense since it allows for proactive scaling before the peak traffic hits.

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Lili

4 months ago

I'm leaning towards option C. Scheduling the scaling action ahead of time seems like the most proactive and least hands-on approach. That way the system can handle the increased traffic without the engineer having to constantly monitor and manually adjust things.

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Whitley

4 months ago

Option A seems like the easiest solution, just adjusting the minimum capacity. But I'm not sure if that's the most efficient approach. The question mentions wanting to resolve the issue with minimal operational effort, so maybe one of the other options would be better.

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Fairy

4 months ago

Hmm, I'm a little unsure about this one. I'm trying to decide between options C and D. Scaling out automatically before the peak seems like a good idea, but manually adding instances and enabling scale-in protection might work too. I'll have to think this through a bit more.

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Beatriz

4 months ago

This seems like a pretty straightforward question. I'd go with option C - creating a scheduled scaling action to scale out before the peak traffic hits. That way the instances will be ready to handle the increased demand.

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Annice

2 months ago

I agree, option C makes the most sense. Preemptive scaling is key!

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