Amazon AWS-SysOps Exam Dumps & Practice Test Questions

Question 1:

You’re hosting several applications in an AWS VPC and have detected repeated port scans from a particular IP range. Your security team requests a temporary 24-hour block of all traffic from this IP range.

What is the most efficient and effective way to achieve this?

A. Use Active Directory policies to configure Windows Firewall rules on all VPC-hosted instances
B. Update Network ACLs on all public subnets to block traffic from the IP address range
C. Add a deny rule to all Security Groups in the VPC for the offending IP range
D. Modify the Windows Firewall rules in all Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) used in the VPC

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

When facing suspicious activity such as port scanning within an AWS-hosted environment, especially across multiple workloads in a VPC, it's critical to act swiftly and uniformly. Blocking such behavior at the Network Access Control List (NACL) level is the most efficient way to mitigate exposure across the affected environment.

NACLs operate at the subnet level in AWS and are stateless. This means rules must be applied to both inbound and outbound traffic. Importantly, unlike Security Groups, NACLs support explicit deny rules, which makes them well-suited for blocking specific IP ranges.

Option A involves using Active Directory (AD) Group Policies to configure Windows Firewall settings across instances. While technically possible, this approach is not practical for rapid incident response. It assumes that all instances are Windows-based, joined to the same AD domain, and properly applying policies. Furthermore, it won’t work for Linux instances or services outside the OS level.

Option B, modifying Network ACLs, is ideal. It applies the IP block uniformly at the network perimeter of each public subnet. Since the rule applies regardless of the instance operating system or application, it provides centralized, quick protection. You can set the deny rule to expire after 24 hours manually or through automation like Lambda or Terraform scripts.

Option C, using Security Groups, is invalid because Security Groups do not support deny rules. They are “allow-only” firewalls, meaning you can only specify what traffic is allowed—not what is denied. This makes them unsuitable for explicitly blocking known bad IPs.

Option D, changing Windows Firewall rules in AMIs, won’t impact currently running instances. AMIs are templates for launching new EC2 instances. Modifying them does not update existing instances, and again, only applies to Windows hosts.

Therefore, the best and most immediate way to deny access from a known malicious IP address block for a short time is to update the NACLs on all relevant public subnets. This approach is secure, centralized, and reversible.

Question 2:

You’re preparing for a compliance audit of your AWS-hosted systems. Which three actions should you take as part of your preparation strategy? (Choose three.)

A. Collect evidence of your operational IT controls
B. Acquire AWS’s third-party compliance certifications and reports
C. Request a physical tour of an AWS data center for a pre-audit security check
D. Obtain approval from AWS to perform penetration testing on your environment
E. Schedule meetings with AWS's third-party auditors to align evidence with your controls

Correct Answers: A, B, D

Explanation:

When undergoing a compliance audit in an AWS environment, understanding your responsibilities within the AWS Shared Responsibility Model is crucial. AWS handles the security “of” the cloud, while you are responsible for the security “in” the cloud—which includes your applications, data, and access policies.

Option A — Gathering evidence of your IT operational controls — is a top priority. Auditors require proof that your internal security measures are effective and compliant. This includes policies, access logs, backup procedures, encryption settings, and incident response plans. It’s your duty to demonstrate that your environment meets the compliance framework’s standards (e.g., HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001).

Option B — Requesting and reviewing AWS’s compliance certifications — is also essential. AWS Artifact provides downloadable compliance documents, including SOC 1, SOC 2, ISO 27001, and PCI DSS reports. These validate AWS’s infrastructure security and can be mapped to your own control requirements.

Option D — Requesting permission to conduct penetration tests — is a required compliance step in many frameworks. AWS mandates that customers submit a request before performing security testing to prevent false alarms or service interruptions. This approval process shows auditors that you’re responsibly verifying your cloud environment’s security posture.

The incorrect options are:

Option C — Requesting a data center tour — is not possible. AWS never allows physical access to its data centers for security and confidentiality reasons. All physical controls are documented in their compliance reports.

Option E — Scheduling meetings with AWS’s third-party auditors — is not feasible. Customers cannot engage directly with AWS’s auditors. Instead, they are expected to use the documents provided in AWS Artifact and map them to their own controls as part of the audit process.

In summary, preparing for an audit in AWS requires actions both within your control (collecting internal control evidence) and via AWS documentation (obtaining compliance reports). Additionally, authorized testing of your environment is often required. Therefore, the correct answers are A, B, and D.

Question 3:

While reviewing your organization's AWS environment, you notice that an Auto Scaling Group behind an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) has launched four healthy EC2 instances in Availability Zone A, but none in Availability Zone B. CloudWatch reports no unhealthy instances.

What configuration change is necessary to ensure instances are distributed across both Availability Zones?

A. Attach the ELB only to the second Availability Zone
B. Configure the Auto Scaling Group to include both Availability Zones
C. Ensure the selected Amazon Machine Image (AMI) is present in both zones
D. Increase the maximum size of the Auto Scaling Group beyond 4

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

To ensure high availability and fault tolerance in AWS, it's critical that Auto Scaling Groups (ASGs) deploy instances across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) within a region. The goal is to prevent a single point of failure in case an AZ becomes unavailable.

In the given scenario, there is an imbalance—all instances are in AZ A and none in AZ B, despite no unhealthy instances being reported. This strongly indicates that the Auto Scaling Group is only configured to launch in AZ A.

Option B is correct because for AWS to distribute EC2 instances evenly, the ASG must be explicitly configured to span multiple AZs. This can be done during ASG creation or by modifying it later. Once AZ B is added to the configuration, AWS can balance future instance launches across both zones based on capacity and health metrics. This not only ensures better performance distribution but also supports fault tolerance in case one AZ becomes impaired.

Let’s review why the other options are incorrect:

• A. Changing the ELB attachment to another AZ doesn’t help unless instances are actually running in that AZ. ELB only distributes traffic to registered, healthy instances.

• C. AMIs are regional, not zone-specific. If the AMI is valid in a region, it is automatically available in all AZs of that region.

• D. Increasing the maximum size allows for more instances but does not control AZ distribution. Without specifying AZ B in the ASG, all instances may continue to launch in AZ A only.

By configuring the ASG to use both AZs, you ensure that AWS can maintain cross-AZ resilience, improve application availability, and provide a more balanced load to users through the ELB. Therefore, the most appropriate and effective solution is B.

Question 4:

You’re designing a high-throughput messaging application using Amazon EC2 instances and Amazon SQS. The system must scale efficiently to handle millions of messages per second.

Which configuration provides the most scalable solution for communicating between EC2 and SQS?

A. Configure EC2 instances behind an Elastic Load Balancer
B. Launch EC2 instances in private subnets with EBS-optimized enabled
C. Use public subnets with public IPs for the EC2 instances
D. Use private subnets with an Auto Scaling Group triggered by SQS queue size

Correct Answer: D

Explanation:

To handle massive-scale message throughput, the design must prioritize automatic scaling, efficient networking, and secure communication between EC2 instances and Amazon SQS. The most appropriate approach is to use an Auto Scaling Group (ASG) to dynamically adjust the number of EC2 workers based on SQS queue size.

Option D is the best choice because it directly addresses elastic scaling needs. By monitoring the SQS queue length using Amazon CloudWatch metrics, the ASG can increase or decrease the number of EC2 instances in response to incoming message volume. This ensures that your application always has enough resources to process messages in a timely manner—scaling up during spikes and scaling down during idle periods to save costs.

The use of private subnets further enhances security. EC2 instances can access AWS services like SQS using either NAT Gateways or, more efficiently, VPC interface endpoints. These endpoints enable private, high-bandwidth, and low-latency communication to AWS services without traversing the public internet, which is ideal for secure, high-throughput applications.

Now consider why the other options fall short:

• A. ELBs are useful for distributing inbound traffic, such as HTTP requests to web servers, but do not apply to EC2 instances pushing or pulling messages to/from SQS.

• B. EBS optimization improves block storage I/O performance but has no impact on network throughput to SQS, which communicates over HTTPS APIs.

• C. Public IPs expose EC2 instances to the internet and are not needed for accessing SQS, which can be reached via private endpoints. This also increases security risks and network costs.

In conclusion, Option D provides an elastic, secure, and scalable architecture by leveraging private networking and automatic scaling based on queue size—perfect for high-volume message handling with Amazon SQS.

Question 5:

You are using an m1.small EC2 instance and notice poor performance when uploading files to an Amazon S3 bucket located in the same AWS region. 

What is the most appropriate solution to address this bottleneck?

A. Attach another Elastic Network Interface (ENI)
B. Upgrade to a more powerful instance type
C. Establish a Direct Connect link between EC2 and S3
D. Enable Provisioned IOPS (PIOPS) for your local EBS volume

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

The network throughput limitations you're experiencing are directly related to the capabilities of the m1.small EC2 instance. AWS assigns different performance profiles to instance types, and older or smaller instances like m1.small are provisioned with limited network bandwidth. These limitations become significant when performing data-intensive operations such as uploading large files to Amazon S3—even when S3 is in the same region.

Upgrading to a larger instance (such as a t3.large, m5.large, or newer generation EC2 type) is the most effective solution. Larger and more modern instances provide higher baseline and burstable network performance. Many newer instance families also support Enhanced Networking, which uses the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) to deliver high throughput and low latency, ensuring significantly better upload performance.

Let’s assess the incorrect options:

• Option A (Add an additional ENI): While adding an extra Elastic Network Interface might be useful for traffic segmentation or attaching multiple IPs, it does not increase the instance’s overall network bandwidth. Bandwidth is dictated by the instance type, not the number of network interfaces.

• Option C (Use Direct Connect): AWS Direct Connect is used to establish dedicated physical connectivity between your on-premises infrastructure and AWS—not between services within AWS. Since your EC2 and S3 resources are in the same region and both are on the AWS backbone, Direct Connect isn’t relevant or applicable here.

• Option D (Use EBS PIOPS): Provisioned IOPS improve disk I/O performance for EBS volumes. However, this doesn't impact network bandwidth, which is what limits upload speed to Amazon S3. Your disk may write or read fast, but it won’t help if the network is the bottleneck.

In conclusion, since the m1.small instance lacks the required network throughput for your workload, the best course of action is to switch to a larger instance type with improved network capacity. This directly addresses the limitation and aligns with AWS scaling best practices. The correct answer is B.

Question 6:

In an Amazon VPC setup, which two infrastructure components are necessary to allow the VPC to communicate with external networks, such as the public internet? (Choose two.)

A. Elastic IP Address (EIP)
B. NAT Gateway
C. Internet Gateway
D. Virtual Private Gateway

Correct Answers: B, C

Explanation:

For an Amazon VPC to communicate with external networks, such as the public internet, you must configure key networking components that handle outbound and inbound traffic appropriately. Two of the most essential components for this purpose are the Internet Gateway (IGW) and the NAT Gateway (NAT).

Internet Gateway (IGW):
This is a horizontally scaled, highly available AWS-managed component that allows communication between resources in your VPC (like public EC2 instances) and the internet. An IGW must be attached to the VPC, and the route table must be updated to route traffic (typically 0.0.0.0/0) through it. Without an IGW, public-facing instances cannot send or receive traffic from the internet, even if they have public IP addresses. Therefore, IGW is crucial for internet-bound traffic from public subnets.

NAT Gateway (NAT):
A NAT Gateway enables instances in private subnets to initiate outbound traffic to the internet (e.g., to download updates or contact APIs) while preventing inbound connections from the internet. It is deployed in a public subnet and referenced in the route tables of private subnets. This setup ensures that sensitive resources remain private while still having necessary outbound connectivity.

Let’s analyze the incorrect options:

• Option A (Elastic IP): While EIPs are used to assign static public IP addresses to EC2 instances or NAT Gateways, they don’t independently provide external connectivity. You still need an IGW and the appropriate route table entries to make them effective.

• Option D (Virtual Private Gateway): A VGW is used to connect your VPC to remote networks, such as your on-premises data center via VPN or AWS Direct Connect. It facilitates private connectivity, not public internet access. Therefore, it’s not relevant for typical external internet communication.

Summary:
To enable external network access in an Amazon VPC, the two essential components are:

• Internet Gateway for general internet access

• NAT Gateway for internet access from private subnets

Thus, the correct answers are B and C.

Question 7:

You are using AWS Auto Scaling and anticipate a 20-fold increase in traffic due to a marketing campaign, requiring up to 175 EC2 instances at peak. 

What is the best way to prepare your infrastructure to avoid service interruptions during this traffic surge?

A. Pre-allocate 175 Elastic IP addresses to ensure each instance gets one when launched
B. Review Trusted Advisor service limits and request increases if needed
C. Set the Auto Scaling group's desired capacity to 175 before the campaign begins
D. Pre-warm the Elastic Load Balancer based on expected peak traffic

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

When preparing for a large, predictable increase in application traffic on AWS, it’s crucial to ensure that your infrastructure can scale without hitting service limits. In this case, a campaign is expected to increase demand gradually over four weeks, eventually requiring 175 EC2 instances. Auto Scaling will dynamically handle the scaling—but only if the account is allowed to provision that many instances. The most critical step is to verify and adjust AWS service quotas.

Each AWS account comes with default soft limits (quotas) on resources, including how many EC2 instances can be launched per region, per instance type, and overall. If your Auto Scaling group tries to launch more instances than your current limit allows, new instance requests will fail. This could result in dropped requests or degraded performance, even though your Auto Scaling configuration is correct. Option B—checking Trusted Advisor for service limits and requesting increases—is the most effective way to avoid this scenario.

Option A, pre-allocating 175 Elastic IPs, is both unnecessary and discouraged. AWS discourages mass reservation of Elastic IPs because most applications do not require public IPs for every instance. Instead, private IPs combined with NAT Gateways are standard practice.

Option C, setting a desired capacity of 175 ahead of time, forces all instances to launch immediately. This bypasses the benefits of Auto Scaling and results in significant over-provisioning and cost, especially since demand is ramping up gradually. You want the ability to scale dynamically—not all at once.

Option D, pre-warming an ELB, was relevant for Classic Load Balancers but is outdated for Application Load Balancers (ALB) and Network Load Balancers (NLB). These modern load balancers scale automatically to meet demand. Unless you’re using CLBs (which is unlikely), pre-warming is unnecessary.

In summary, AWS Auto Scaling is highly effective when backed by sufficient service quotas. The most proactive and reliable step to ensure smooth scaling is to review your Trusted Advisor reports and request quota increases for EC2 instances and Auto Scaling groups. This guarantees you can scale up to 175 instances without encountering service disruptions during peak traffic.

Question 8:

Your Auto Scaling group is integrated with an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB), but unhealthy instances flagged by the ELB are not being replaced. What action should you take to fix this issue?

A. Adjust health check sensitivity thresholds in the Auto Scaling group
B. Configure the Auto Scaling group to use ELB health checks
C. Increase the health check interval setting on the ELB
D. Change the ELB’s health check protocol from HTTP to TCP

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

When using Auto Scaling in conjunction with an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB), it’s vital that the Auto Scaling group is configured to respond to health checks from the ELB. By default, Auto Scaling only evaluates the health of EC2 instances using the instance status reported by the EC2 service. This means that even if the ELB marks an instance as unhealthy—due to failed HTTP checks, for example—the Auto Scaling group may continue to keep the instance running unless explicitly told to use ELB health data.

Option B is correct because it addresses the core issue: the Auto Scaling group must be set to use ELB health checks rather than just EC2 checks. This can be done by configuring the group’s health check type to ELB. Once enabled, the Auto Scaling group will monitor instance health based on ELB status. If the ELB detects that an instance is failing its configured health checks, the Auto Scaling group will terminate and replace the unhealthy instance, ensuring availability and high performance.

Option A suggests modifying thresholds within the Auto Scaling health check system, but this would only impact EC2 health checks—not ELB-based assessments. Since ELB's feedback isn’t being considered by default, adjusting sensitivity won’t solve the problem.

Option C, increasing the health check interval on the ELB, merely delays the identification of unhealthy instances. Even worse, the Auto Scaling group still wouldn’t act on ELB health feedback unless properly configured. So, this is at best a superficial fix.

Option D, changing the ELB protocol from HTTP to TCP, may reduce false negatives if your app’s HTTP layer fails but the TCP connection is still live. However, this only affects how the ELB detects health—it does not address the central issue: whether the Auto Scaling group is set up to respond to ELB health check results.

In conclusion, if your Auto Scaling group isn’t replacing ELB-flagged unhealthy instances, the most effective solution is to explicitly enable ELB-based health checks in the Auto Scaling group. This ensures real-time instance replacement and seamless scaling.

Therefore, the correct answer is B.

Question 9:

Which two AWS services natively support user-configurable automatic backups along with built-in backup retention management, eliminating the need for external tools or scripts? (Choose two.)

A. Amazon S3
B. Amazon RDS
C. Amazon EBS
D. Amazon Redshift

Correct Answers: B, D

Explanation:

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers several storage and database services, but not all provide built-in automation for backup scheduling and retention management without additional setup or tools. The question asks specifically about services that come with native support for user-defined automatic backups and lifecycle policies for backup rotation.

Let’s examine each option:

Amazon RDS (B) is a fully managed relational database service that natively supports automatic backups. When creating a database instance, users can enable automatic backups and set the retention period, which can range from 1 to 35 days. RDS handles everything behind the scenes — taking backups during a defined window, storing them securely in S3, and rotating old backups based on the retention policy. These backups are used for point-in-time recovery, ensuring that data can be restored with minimal loss. No third-party tooling or manual scripting is required.

Amazon Redshift (D), AWS's data warehousing service, also supports automated snapshots. These snapshots are created periodically (usually every 8 hours or after 5 GB of changes), and users can define the retention window for these snapshots, again ranging from 1 to 35 days. Redshift also allows for manual snapshots, and users can set up cross-region snapshot copy for disaster recovery purposes. Importantly, the service deletes old snapshots automatically based on retention settings, aligning perfectly with backup rotation needs.

Now, let’s explain why the other options are not correct:

Amazon S3 (A) provides versioning and lifecycle policies that help manage object storage. However, S3 isn’t a backup service per se. It lacks true backup features like point-in-time recovery, automated snapshotting, or built-in backup rotation logic. Users can configure lifecycle rules to move or delete objects over time, but these are not considered backups in the traditional sense.

Amazon EBS (C) supports snapshots, which are used for backup purposes. However, the snapshots must be scheduled manually or via additional services like AWS Backup or through Lambda-based automation. EBS alone does not offer out-of-the-box backup automation with rotation. Therefore, while you can achieve similar outcomes, it’s not a native feature of EBS itself.

In summary, only Amazon RDS and Amazon Redshift provide built-in, user-configurable automated backups and backup lifecycle management, fulfilling the criteria of this question. Thus, the correct answers are B and D.

Question 10:

An application is deployed in AWS with an Internet Gateway, public and private subnets spread across multiple Availability Zones (AZs), and an Elastic Load Balancer serving traffic to Auto Scaling groups. The backend database uses a multi-AZ RDS instance. 

What should the organization do to eliminate single points of failure in this architecture?

A. No changes are needed, the design is already redundant.
B. Add another Internet Gateway to improve internet connectivity redundancy.
C. Deploy a second Elastic Load Balancer in a different AZ for load balancing resilience.
D. Add another multi-AZ RDS instance in a separate AZ with replication for enhanced database redundancy.

Correct Answer: D

Explanation:

This scenario involves an AWS architecture designed for high availability, with public and private subnets across multiple AZs, an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB), Auto Scaling, and a multi-AZ Amazon RDS deployment. The question seeks to identify any remaining single point of failure (SPOF) and determine how to address it.

Let’s analyze the setup:

• ELB spans multiple AZs and is inherently redundant. It routes incoming traffic to healthy targets across multiple AZs, automatically handling AZ failure without manual intervention.

• Auto Scaling groups provide compute-level fault tolerance. Instances can launch in healthy AZs if failures occur.

• Multi-AZ RDS provides automatic failover. In the event of a failure, AWS promotes the standby instance to primary.

At first glance, the architecture may appear fully resilient. However, Option D offers additional protection. While multi-AZ RDS protects against infrastructure failure within a region, it still relies on a single database instance and associated storage. To bolster database redundancy and enhance disaster recovery, deploying a second multi-AZ RDS instance — possibly in another region — and enabling replication (e.g., using Read Replicas or custom replication) provides true redundancy, protecting against broader outages or corruption.

Let’s evaluate why the other options are incorrect:

• Option A is misleading. Although the system is highly available, redundancy at the database layer can still be improved. Relying solely on a single multi-AZ RDS instance introduces a SPOF for certain scenarios like logical corruption, or regional failure, which are not mitigated by AZ-based failover alone.
  
  

• Option B is technically invalid. A VPC supports only one Internet Gateway (IGW). Adding a second IGW is not possible in AWS. Thus, this is not a viable method to enhance redundancy.
  
  

• Option C is unnecessary. ELBs are managed by AWS and designed for high availability by default. You don’t need to manually create multiple ELBs in the same region for fault tolerance.
  
  

In conclusion, adding a second RDS instance with replication strengthens database resilience and ensures that the system can recover from failures that aren’t covered by the default multi-AZ setup. Hence, the best strategy to remove the remaining SPOF is D.