AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – AssociateCost and Performance OptimizationHard
A company is using an Amazon EC2 instance running a custom application. They need to ensure that the instance is always available and running, even in the event of an underlying hardware failure. The application state is stored on an Amazon EBS volume, which must persist independently of the instance. Which EC2 feature should be used to meet these requirements with minimal operational overhead?
- AConfigure the EC2 instance within an Auto Scaling Group.
- BEnable EC2 Auto-Recovery for the instance.
- CUtilize AWS Systems Manager to automatically restart the instance.
- DAttach the EBS volume to a new instance manually upon failure.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: B. Enable EC2 Auto-Recovery for the instance.
EC2 Auto-Recovery automatically recovers an instance by migrating it to healthy underlying hardware in the event of an impaired host. This ensures the instance remains running, and since the EBS volume persists independently, it will be re-attached to the recovered instance, meeting both availability and data persistence requirements with minimal intervention.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. An Auto Scaling Group would launch a *new* instance, which is good for scaling and replacing failed instances, but it doesn't 'recover' the original instance and would require re-attaching the EBS volume and potentially re-configuring the application if state is not fully managed at the EBS level.
- C. AWS Systems Manager can automate many tasks, but it typically reacts to alarms or schedules. EC2 Auto-Recovery is a built-in, proactive feature for host-level failures.
- D. Manually attaching the EBS volume to a new instance would involve significant downtime and manual intervention, which conflicts with the 'minimal operational overhead' requirement.
EC2 Auto-Recovery
A feature that automatically recovers an EC2 instance by migrating it to new, healthy hardware when an underlying host issue is detected.
- Preserves instance ID and private IP.
- Re-attaches EBS volumes.
- Reduces downtime from hardware failures.
Memory trick: Keeping EC2 alive: recover, replace, or automate.