DOP-C02 · Question #177
DOP-C02 Question #177: Real Exam Question with Answer & Explanation
The correct answer is A: Implement the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler in the EKS cluster.. Explanation Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) is the correct solution because it dynamically scales the number of pods based on observed metrics (such as CPU or memory usage), meaning pods only scale out when actual demand requires it - preventing the premature, maximum-scale behav
Question
A company runs applications in an Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) cluster. The EKS cluster uses an Application Load Balancer to route traffic to the applications that run in the cluster. A new application that was migrated to the EKS cluster is performing poorly. All the other applications in the EKS cluster maintain appropriate operation. The new application scales out horizontally to the preconfigured maximum number of pods immediately upon deployment, before any user traffic routes to the web application. Which solution will resolve the scaling behavior of the web application in the EKS cluster?
Options
- AImplement the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler in the EKS cluster.
- BImplement the Vertical Pod Autoscaler in the EKS cluster.
- CImplement the Cluster Autoscaler.
- DImplement the AWS Load Balancer Controller in the EKS cluster.
Explanation
Explanation
Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) is the correct solution because it dynamically scales the number of pods based on observed metrics (such as CPU or memory usage), meaning pods only scale out when actual demand requires it - preventing the premature, maximum-scale behavior described in the question. Without HPA properly configured, Kubernetes may default to static replica settings that immediately spin up the maximum number of pods regardless of traffic.
Option B (Vertical Pod Autoscaler) is incorrect because VPA adjusts the resource requests/limits (CPU/memory) of existing pods rather than controlling the number of pods - it doesn't address horizontal scaling behavior.
Option C (Cluster Autoscaler) is wrong because it scales the underlying EC2 nodes in the cluster, not the pods themselves, so it wouldn't fix premature pod scaling.
Option D (AWS Load Balancer Controller) is a distractor because it manages the ALB integration with EKS for routing traffic - it has no influence over pod scaling decisions.
🧠 Memory Tip: Think Horizontal = Headcount (number of pods). HPA is the traffic cop for pod count - it only adds more pods when metrics justify it. If pods are misbehaving in quantity, HPA is your answer.
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