How Do You Get Email Alerts When New EC2 Instances Launch?
A company must receive an email notification immediately when new Amazon EC2 instances launch in the company's main AWS production account. Which solution will meet this requirement?
Community Insight
The test is whether you know EC2 launch events are delivered natively to EventBridge and can target SNS directly — the trap is inventing a Lambda polling loop or relying on a user data script that only runs on standardized builds.
Amazon EC2 instance state-change events can be matched by an Amazon EventBridge rule and routed to an Amazon SNS topic with an email subscription, giving immediate notification whenever a new instance launches. This page establishes why option C is the correct, event-driven, agentless solution for the production account.
Option B is the most common wrong pick: learners assume SNS must be polled by Lambda, but SNS pushes to subscribers and Systems Manager does not publish EC2 launch events at all, so the design adds cost, delay and complexity for nothing.
Community Discussion (1 comments)
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Expert Analysis
Why the Answer Is Correct
Option C uses the native event path: EC2 emits anEC2 Instance State-change Notification event to the default EventBridge bus whenever an instance enters pending/running, and an EventBridge rule with that source and detail-type filters for instance launches. Specifying the SNS topic as the rule target means SNS immediately pushes an email to the subscribed address — no polling, no agent, and no dependency on how the instance was built. Because the rule lives in the account itself, it fires for instances launched by any principal, whether through the console, CLI, CloudFormation or Auto Scaling. The only one-time step is confirming the SNS email subscription, after which notifications are automatic.Why the Other Options Are Wrong
Option A depends on a user data script, which only runs if the instance was built through the standardized process and requires an SMTP relay to be reachable — instances launched outside that process produce no notification at all, and the SMTP path is fragile. Option B is architecturally backwards: SNS pushes to Lambda subscriptions rather than requiring a Lambda function to poll the topic, and AWS Systems Manager does not publish EC2 launch events to SNS, so the trigger source described does not exist. Option D misusesAssociateInstanceEventWindow, which attaches an instance to an event window that suppresses disruptive maintenance events such as reboots and migrations; it is not a notification routing mechanism and cannot target an SNS topic for launch events.Community Comment Notes
As Bad_Mat noted, option C “uses an Amazon EventBridge rule to detect EC2 launch events natively” and routes them straight to an SNS topic with an email subscription, which gives immediate notification with the least operational complexity. Bad_Mat also flagged this as “Another old question,” a reminder that the same EventBridge-to-SNS pattern recurs across AWS exams. The consensus in the thread is that the event-driven design beats any instance-side scripting approach.Official Reference
Exam Strategy
When a question asks for an immediate notification about an AWS resource state change, look for the EventBridge rule plus SNS target combination first and eliminate any answer that requires polling, agents or user data. AWS exam distractors frequently wrap SNS in a Lambda polling loop even though SNS delivery is push-based.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the Lambda-polling-SNS design in option B wrong for EC2 launch alerts?
SNS pushes messages to subscribers rather than being polled, and Systems Manager does not publish EC2 launch events to SNS, so option B adds cost and delay without a real trigger.
Can AssociateInstanceEventWindow send an email when an EC2 instance launches?
No. An instance event window defines time ranges that suppress disruptive events such as reboots or migrations; it is not a notification target for launch events.
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