SAP-C02 Question 221
Single answerA company is running a large-scale e-commerce platform on AWS. To handle unpredictable traffic spikes during sales, the company uses Auto Scaling groups with EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). However, during a recent flash sale, some users experienced delays due to insufficient EC2 instance capacity when traffic spiked suddenly. The company wants to ensure that such delays are avoided in future events by proactively scaling in advance. Which solution would best address this requirement?
- A
Configure predictive scaling for the Auto Scaling group to forecast traffic patterns and scale resources in advance.
- B
Change the Auto Scaling group scaling policy to target tracking based on CPU utilization.
- C
Increase the minimum and maximum instance count in the Auto Scaling group to handle higher traffic at all times.
- D
Enable Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) health checks for the Auto Scaling group to terminate and replace unhealthy instances.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
Predictive scaling is the most suitable option for this scenario because it allows the Auto Scaling group to anticipate changes in demand based on historical traffic patterns and scale resources proactively. This approach ensures that instance capacity is ready before traffic spikes occur, reducing the risk of delays for users during high-demand events.
- A. Correct.
Predictive scaling in Auto Scaling groups uses historical data to forecast future traffic and automatically adjusts the capacity in advance, making it the best solution for handling sudden traffic spikes.
- B. Incorrect.
Target tracking scaling adjusts the capacity based on real-time metrics like CPU utilization but does not proactively prepare for sudden traffic spikes. It reacts to demand rather than anticipating it.
- C. Incorrect.
Increasing the minimum and maximum instance count ensures higher capacity is always available, but it is neither cost-effective nor dynamic for unpredictable traffic patterns.
- D. Incorrect.
Enabling ELB health checks removes unhealthy instances but does not address the root cause of insufficient capacity during traffic spikes.