Deploy, manage, and operate highly available systems on AWS for the SOA-C02 certification
Start Practicing NowAutomate deployments, monitor systems, and implement disaster recovery
Configure security controls, audit trails, and compliance reporting
Monitor costs, optimize resources, and implement cost allocation tags
Select AWS SysOps Administrator Associate (SOA-C02) as your interview topic and customize the difficulty level
Answer realistic AWS SysOps Administrator Associate (SOA-C02) interview questions in a simulated environment
Receive detailed feedback on your answers, including areas to improve
Monitor your improvement and identify strengths and weaknesses
CloudFormation and infrastructure automation
Systems Manager for patch management
CloudWatch metrics, logs, and alarms
High availability and fault tolerance
Backup and disaster recovery strategies
Security monitoring and AWS Config
Cost optimization and Trusted Advisor
Network troubleshooting (VPC Flow Logs)
Deployment strategies (blue/green, canary)
A: 1) CloudWatch: check CPUUtilization metric, set alarms. 2) Use CloudWatch agent for detailed metrics (memory, disk, process-level). 3) Enable detailed monitoring (1-min intervals vs 5-min). 4) Check CloudWatch Logs for application errors. 5) Use Systems Manager Session Manager to connect, run 'top' or 'htop'. 6) Check EBS IOPS limits if I/O wait is high. 7) Review instance type - may need CPU-optimized instance. 8) Auto Scaling to handle load.
A: Systems Manager manages hybrid cloud resources. Features: 1) Session Manager: secure shell access without SSH keys/bastion hosts. 2) Patch Manager: automated OS patching with maintenance windows. 3) Parameter Store: encrypted config/secrets storage. 4) Run Command: execute scripts on fleet. 5) Automation: runbooks for common tasks. 6) State Manager: maintain instance configuration. 7) Inventory: collect metadata. Requires SSM agent on instances, IAM role.
A: 1) AWS Backup: centralized backup service for EBS, RDS, DynamoDB, EFS, FSx. Create backup plan with schedule and retention. 2) Enable RDS automated backups (1-35 days). 3) EBS snapshots with Lifecycle Manager. 4) S3 versioning and cross-region replication. 5) AMIs for EC2 recovery. 6) Test recovery regularly. 7) Document RTO/RPO requirements. 8) Use Backup Vault Lock for compliance. 9) Tag resources for backup policies.
A: Health checks: ALB pings targets at intervals, checks for successful response code (default 200). Unhealthy threshold: consecutive failures before marking unhealthy (default 2). Healthy threshold: consecutive successes to mark healthy (default 5). Timeout: time to wait for response (default 5s). Interval: time between checks (default 30s). Health check path should verify actual application health, not just web server. Configure appropriate timeouts to avoid false negatives.
A: 1) Check Security Groups: ensure source SG/CIDR is allowed in destination SG. 2) Check NACLs: ensure both inbound and outbound rules allow traffic (stateless). 3) Check route tables: verify routes exist for target subnet. 4) Use VPC Flow Logs: identify ACCEPT/REJECT traffic. 5) Test with telnet/nc to specific port. 6) Check if instances in different AZs/subnets. 7) Verify IGW/NAT Gateway for internet traffic. 8) Use VPC Reachability Analyzer for path analysis.
A: CloudWatch Logs stores logs from services and applications. Retention: 1 day to 10 years, or indefinitely (set per log group). Metric filters: extract metrics from logs (e.g., count ERROR occurrences), create alarms. Logs Insights: query language for log analysis (fields, stats, filter). Export to S3 for long-term storage. Cross-account: share logs via IAM/resource policies. Use CloudWatch agent to send custom logs. Cost: ingestion + storage + queries.
A: 1) Use Instance Scheduler: auto stop/start EC2/RDS on schedule (nights/weekends). 2) Right-size: analyze CloudWatch metrics, downsize over-provisioned instances. 3) Use Spot instances for testing. 4) Delete unused resources: EBS volumes, snapshots, elastic IPs. 5) Use S3 Intelligent-Tiering. 6) Implement lifecycle policies for logs and backups. 7) Use AWS Budgets for alerts. 8) Review Trusted Advisor recommendations. 9) Tag resources for cost allocation.
A: 1) All-at-once: deploy to all instances simultaneously, fast but downtime. Good for: dev/test. 2) Rolling: deploy in batches, maintains capacity, longer deployment. Good for: prod with some downtime tolerance. 3) Rolling with additional batch: adds temporary instances for full capacity, no downtime but costlier. 4) Immutable: new ASG, zero downtime, quick rollback, most expensive. 5) Blue/green: two complete environments, instant switch, most resources. Choose based on downtime tolerance, rollback speed needs, and budget.
Master CloudWatch: metrics, alarms, dashboards, Logs Insights, Synthetics
Know Systems Manager inside out - it's heavily tested
Understand networking troubleshooting: Security Groups, NACLs, route tables, VPC Flow Logs
Practice with CloudFormation: stacks, change sets, drift detection, stack sets
Study high availability: multi-AZ deployments, Auto Scaling, load balancing
Know backup and recovery: AWS Backup, EBS snapshots, RDS backups, DR strategies
Master cost optimization: Reserved Instances, Savings Plans, right-sizing, Trusted Advisor
Understand compliance: AWS Config, AWS Config Rules, Systems Manager compliance
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