SAP-C03 practice question: Operational automation and runbooks (EventBridge, Systems Manager, Service Quotas)
Operational Excellence and Automation A free question from our original SAP-C03 practice exam. Try it, then open the answer to see why each option is right or wrong.
A telecom operator's provisioning service creates resources in one Region, and its account is close to the service quota for running EC2 vCPUs. The last two releases failed when quota was exhausted, and the operations team found out from the failed deployments.
The team wants an alert before the account reaches the quota, a documented response that starts without waiting for a person to notice, and a way to request a higher quota through the same automated path.
Which solution meets these requirements?
Choose one answer.
AA. Review the Service Quotas page each month, and open a support case by hand for any quota that is above 70 percent of its limit.
BB. Alarm on the Service Quotas usage metric for EC2 vCPUs in CloudWatch, and route the alarm through EventBridge to a Systems Manager Automation runbook that requests a quota increase.
CC. Request a large one-time increase of the vCPU quota in the Service Quotas console, and leave the quota there so that no alarm or automated response is needed for the rest of the year.
DD. Add a retry loop to the provisioning service that waits an hour after each quota error, so the release succeeds once capacity frees up.
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: B
A. Wrong: A monthly review is too slow to warn before a release fails, and the manual case is the step the team wants to automate. The option gives no automatic response.
B. Right: Correct. The usage metric and alarm warn before the quota is reached, and the EventBridge rule starts a Systems Manager runbook as the documented response. The runbook can file the quota increase request, so no one has to notice first.
C. Wrong: A one-time maximum increase may not match future use and does not alert the team if usage grows. The team also wants an automated response, which this option does not provide.
D. Wrong: A retry loop hides the shortage instead of warning about it, and the release can still miss its window. The option gives no alert and no documented response.
Explanation
A CloudWatch alarm on the quota usage metric warns early, and an EventBridge rule starts a Systems Manager runbook that files the increase request. Monthly reviews, a one-time increase and retry loops each leave the team unwarned or without a documented, automatic response.
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