SOA-C03 practice question: AMIs, Image Builder and container images

Deployment, Provisioning, and Automation A free question from our original SOA-C03 practice exam. Try it, then open the answer to see why each option is right or wrong.

A dental chain launches its practice-management servers from a hardened Amazon Linux AMI. Today an engineer builds the AMI by hand each month, installs the latest patches and the CloudWatch agent, runs a test script, and then copies the AMI to three Regions and shares it with four accounts. Builds are often late and sometimes skip the tests. The chain wants this automated with the LEAST operational overhead. What should a CloudOps engineer do?

Choose one answer.

A. Create an EC2 Image Builder pipeline with build and test components, a monthly schedule, and distribution settings for the three Regions and four accounts.
B. Write a Lambda function that calls CreateImage on a reference instance every month, then copies and shares the result with each Region and account.
C. Use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager with an AMI policy that creates a new AMI from the reference instance every month and copies it to three Regions.
D. Run HashiCorp Packer on a dedicated EC2 build instance with a cron job, and copy the resulting AMI to each Region with an AWS CLI script.

Show the answer and explanation

Answer: A

A. Right: Correct. Image Builder runs build components, such as patching and agent install, and test components on a schedule. Its distribution settings copy the AMI to Regions and share it with accounts, all as a managed service. Learn more: Manage EC2 Image Builder distribution settings (opens in a new tab)
B. Wrong: CreateImage captures whatever is on the reference instance, so patching and testing still have to be scripted separately. The team would also maintain the copy and share logic itself. Learn more: Copy an Amazon EC2 AMI (opens in a new tab)
C. Wrong: DLM AMI policies create and retain AMIs from tagged instances on a schedule, but they do not patch the instance or run tests. The build steps the chain needs would still be manual. Learn more: Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (opens in a new tab)
D. Wrong: Packer can build and test images, but the team would run and patch the build server and maintain the scripts themselves. That is more overhead than a managed pipeline. Learn more: What is EC2 Image Builder? (opens in a new tab)

Explanation

EC2 Image Builder is the managed service for golden image pipelines. Components describe the build and test steps, a schedule runs the pipeline, and distribution settings copy and share the AMI across Regions and accounts. Custom scripts, DLM and self-managed tools can each cover part of the process but leave work for the team.

SOA-C03 practice question: AMIs, Image Builder and container images

Explanation

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