Which Solution Improves Availability with Minimal Effort?
A company wants to improve the availability of its application with a solution that requires minimal effort in the event a server needs to be replaced or added. Which of the following would be the best solution to meet these objectives?
Community Votes
67% of anonymous learners picked answer A. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.
Community Insight
Tests the distinction between availability techniques; the trap is choosing replication for data redundancy when the scenario emphasizes effortless server replacement or addition.
Load balancing improves application availability by distributing traffic across multiple servers, so replacing or adding a server causes minimal disruption. This page explains why load balancing (A) beats replication, fault tolerance, and proxy servers for this SY0-701 scenario.
Many learners pick replication because it provides redundancy, but replication alone does not automatically redistribute incoming application traffic when a server is added or removed.
Community Discussion (4 comments)
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Expert Analysis
Why the Answer Is Correct
Load balancing (A) directly addresses availability by spreading client requests across a pool of servers. When a server is added or replaced, the load balancer can automatically redirect traffic to healthy nodes with minimal manual reconfiguration. This matches the question's requirement of "minimal effort in the event a server needs to be replaced or added." Community consensus supports A, as jbmac notes it "distributes traffic across multiple servers" and Fourgehan says traffic "can be redirected to other healthy servers automatically."Why the Other Options Are Wrong
Fault tolerance (B) is a design goal or capability, not a specific solution that eases server replacement; it typically requires redundant hardware and does not inherently simplify adding nodes. Proxy servers (C) forward requests and may cache content, but they do not provide high availability across server changes. Replication (D) copies data for redundancy or read scaling, but adding or replacing a server still requires configuring replication roles and does not by itself balance incoming application traffic. kambam argued replication handles switchover, yet that addresses data failover rather than effortless traffic redistribution.Community Comment Notes
Most voters chose A, with jbmac explaining that load balancing ensures if one server goes down, "the load can be redistributed to the remaining servers without causing downtime." Fourgehan adds that traffic "can be redirected to other healthy servers automatically," requiring minimal manual intervention. kambam preferred D, arguing replication enables "easy switch over," but that addresses data availability and failover, not the traffic-distribution requirement of this scenario. Segunmx also selected A, noting load balancing keeps the application available even if one server goes down.Exam Strategy
Focus on the key phrase "minimal effort when a server is replaced or added" — that points to traffic distribution, not data copying. Eliminate replication unless the scenario explicitly mentions data consistency, database failover, or read scaling.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is replication (D) not the best choice for this scenario?
Replication copies data to another server for redundancy or read scaling, but it does not automatically redistribute incoming traffic when a server is added or replaced.
Does load balancing require manual effort when adding a new server?
Most load balancers automatically detect new healthy nodes and include them in the pool, so adding or replacing a server usually needs minimal reconfiguration.
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