SOA-C02
Free AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate Practice Test
12 exam-style questions with full explanations — no sign-up. Score yourself, then close your gaps with the full course.
Exam fee ~$1506 exam domainsLevel Intermediate2 timed practice tests in the course
✅ Free practice — no sign-up📝 Real exam-style questions💡 Detailed explanations💸 30-day money-back via Udemy
A company wants to automatically stop EC2 instances tagged Environment=Dev outside business hours (6 PM–8 AM) with zero manual intervention, and requires an audit trail of every remediation action taken. Which solution BEST meets these requirements?
An EventBridge scheduled (cron) rule triggering an SSM Automation runbook fully automates the stop action on a fixed schedule with no human involvement, and CloudTrail natively logs every API call the Automation makes, satisfying the audit requirement.
A financial services company runs a critical Amazon RDS for MySQL database. The application team requires near-zero RPO and automatic failover during an Availability Zone outage, with no changes to the application's database connection string. Which solution BEST meets these requirements?
Multi-AZ synchronously replicates data to a standby in another AZ and automatically fails over using the same DNS endpoint, delivering near-zero RPO and no application changes.
A company uses AWS Organizations with dozens of member accounts across three Regions. The SysOps team must automatically deploy a standard S3 bucket and IAM role into every existing and future member account in all three Regions, without accounts having to individually assume a deployment role. Which solution meets this requirement with the LEAST ongoing operational effort?
StackSets with service-managed permissions integrates directly with AWS Organizations, automatically deploying and updating stack instances in existing and new member accounts across specified Regions without manual role setup in each account.
A company has an application running on EC2 instances in Account A that needs to read objects from an S3 bucket in Account B. Which approach BEST grants this access following least privilege?
A cross-account IAM role with a trust policy lets the Account A EC2 instance role assume temporary credentials via STS, providing least-privilege, time-limited access without any long-term credentials.
An application running on EC2 instances in a private subnet (no NAT Gateway, no internet access) needs to read and write objects to an S3 bucket in the same Region. The company wants to avoid any data transfer charges for NAT Gateway processing and keep traffic off the public internet. Which solution meets these requirements with the LOWEST cost?
A Gateway VPC endpoint for S3 has no hourly or per-GB processing charge, works entirely within the AWS network, and is configured simply by adding a route table entry pointing to the endpoint's prefix list — the standard low-cost solution for private S3 access.
A company runs a fault-tolerant, flexible batch data processing job on EC2 that can be interrupted and restarted at any point without data loss. The job runs for approximately 10 hours per day, and there is no requirement for guaranteed capacity. The company wants to minimize compute costs. Which purchasing option is MOST cost-effective for this workload?
Spot Instances offer discounts of up to 90% off On-Demand pricing and are ideal for fault-tolerant, interruptible workloads like this batch job, which can tolerate interruption and restart.
A SysOps administrator needs to run an ad-hoc query directly against an application's CloudWatch Logs group to find all ERROR entries with a response time greater than 5000ms in the last hour, and compute average latency grouped by API endpoint, without exporting the logs to any other service. Which tool should be used?
CloudWatch Logs Insights provides a purpose-built query language (filter, parse, stats) that runs directly against log groups in place, supporting field-based filtering and aggregation like average latency per endpoint with no export step required.
An Auto Scaling group backs a web tier whose average CPU utilization must be maintained at approximately 50% regardless of load fluctuations, without manual threshold tuning. Which Auto Scaling policy type should be used?
Target tracking scaling automatically adjusts capacity to keep a specified metric, such as average CPU utilization, at a chosen target value, adding or removing instances as needed without manual threshold management.
A SysOps administrator manages a fleet of 500 EC2 instances running a mix of Amazon Linux 2, Windows Server, and Ubuntu. Security requires monthly OS patching on a defined schedule with a compliance report showing which instances are missing critical patches. Which AWS service should be used?
Patch Manager automates patch scanning and installation across multiple operating systems using patch baselines, and integrates with Maintenance Windows for scheduling plus patch compliance reporting in the Systems Manager console.
A financial services company must encrypt data at rest in Amazon S3 using keys for which they fully control the rotation schedule (rotating manually every 90 days) and require a complete audit trail of every key usage event. Which KMS key type should they use?
Customer managed CMKs with imported key material give the customer full control over the rotation schedule (rotation must be done manually by creating and swapping key material) and every use of the key is logged in AWS CloudTrail.
A company runs the same web application behind Application Load Balancers in us-east-1 and eu-west-1. They want Route 53 to send each user to whichever Region gives the fastest response time, and to automatically stop sending traffic to a Region if its ALB becomes unhealthy. Which Route 53 configuration meets these requirements?
Latency-based routing directs users to the Region with the lowest measured latency, and attaching a health check to each latency record lets Route 53 automatically exclude an unhealthy Region's record from answers, failing traffic over to the next-best-latency healthy Region.
A company stores compliance log archives that must be retained for 7 years. The logs are almost never accessed after the first 30 days, but a few times per year auditors request retrieval, and the company must be able to retrieve the requested files within 12 hours. Which S3 storage configuration meets these requirements at the LOWEST cost?
S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest-cost storage class (about $0.00099/GB-month) and its standard retrieval tier completes within 12 hours, exactly meeting the stated retrieval requirement at the lowest possible cost for 7-year retention.
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How much does the SOA-C02 exam cost?
The exam fee is approximately $150 and varies by region — confirm current pricing with the certification vendor before you book.
What topics are on the exam?
It covers 6 domains: Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation (20%), Reliability and Business Continuity (16%), Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation (18%), Security and Compliance (16%), Networking and Content Delivery (18%), Cost and Performance Optimization (12%). The full course has a dedicated chapter, lab and practice-test coverage for each.
Is this practice test really free?
Yes — all questions on this page are free with explanations and no sign-up. The paid Udemy course adds two full-length timed exams, video lessons and hands-on labs.
How do I get the discount?
Use code 89CE4ED79F19FA855B6D at checkout for $34.99 (list undefined) through Sep 23 — the enroll button applies it automatically.
Will this prepare me for the real exam?
The questions mirror the real exam's style and are mapped to the official domains. This is exam-focused preparation — combine the free test with the full course's timed simulations to gauge your readiness.