AWS Certified Advanced Networking Specialty Practice Exam

Which component is essential for the NAT instance in this architecture?

1. To balance traffic to the ELB

2. To enable secure access via SSH

3. To manage Auto Scaling operations

4. To provide redundancy for application servers

The correct answer is: To enable secure access via SSH

In a NAT instance architecture, the primary role of the NAT (Network Address Translation) instance is to allow instances in a private subnet to initiate outbound traffic to the internet while preventing the internet from initiating inbound connections to those instances. For this setup to function effectively, securing access to the NAT instance is crucial. Enabling secure access via SSH allows network administrators or engineers to connect to the NAT instance for configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting purposes. This secure access is fundamental to manage the instance effectively, ensuring that it operates correctly and remains up to date. While the other components listed may be important in different contexts (such as load balancing, auto-scaling management, or redundancy), they do not directly pertain to the specific requirement of a NAT instance to facilitate secure management access. Therefore, emphasizing secure SSH access is key to maintaining the integrity and operational capability of a NAT instance within a cloud architecture.