AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Practice Exam

Which of the following statements is correct regarding EC2 instance termination protection?

1. You can enable termination protection for spot instances.

2. Instances in an Auto Scaling group cannot be terminated on scale in with instance protection enabled.

3. Termination protection is enabled by default for all EC2 instances.

4. You must manually configure termination protection settings for each instance.

The correct answer is: Instances in an Auto Scaling group cannot be terminated on scale in with instance protection enabled.

Termination protection is a feature that helps safeguard EC2 instances from accidental termination by requiring an explicit action to disable protection before an instance can be terminated. When considering the statements, some offer insights into how termination protection interacts with different EC2 configurations. The statement regarding Auto Scaling groups is noteworthy because while instances in an Auto Scaling group are frequently terminated to maintain the desired capacity, enabling instance protection means these specific instances will not be subject to termination during a scale-in event. This is an important aspect to understand about Auto Scaling groups: the automatic nature of scaling up and down can conflict with the need to protect certain instances. Thus, when instance protection is enabled, those instances are effectively shielded from being terminated during scaling activities, showcasing a careful balance between automation and protection. In contrast, the other statements either misrepresent capabilities related to termination protection or provide details that do not align with the feature's intended operations. For example, enabling termination protection for spot instances is indeed not supported in the way one might expect. Additionally, termination protection is not automatically enabled for all EC2 instances; it must be specifically configured. Lastly, manually configuring termination protection for each instance accurately reflects how the feature must be implemented, but may not highlight the nuance regarding its application within Auto Scaling