AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (legacy) — Question 545

A company has deployed its infrastructure using AWS CloudFormation. Recently, the company made manual changes to the infrastructure. A SysOps
Administrator is tasked with determining what was changed and updating the CloudFormation template.
Which solution will ensure all the changes are captured?

Answer options

• A. Create a new CloudFormation stack based on the changes that were made. Delete the old stack and deploy the new stack.
• B. Update the CloudFormation stack using a change set. Review the changes and update the stack.
• C. Update the CloudFormation stack by modifying the selected parameters in the template to match what was changed.
• D. Use drift detection on the CloudFormation stack. Use the output to update the CloudFormation template and redeploy the stack.

Correct answer: B

Explanation

Creating and executing a change set allows the administrator to preview how the proposed template updates will affect the running resources before applying them, ensuring a controlled and fully captured update process. Other methods like recreating the entire stack can cause unnecessary downtime, while manually adjusting parameters without a change set does not provide a preview of the impact. Although drift detection identifies out-of-band changes, generating a change set is the standard, safe method for reviewing and applying template updates to match desired states.