Career upgrade: Learn practical AI skills for better jobs and higher pay.
Level up
PracticeVideosBlogFlashcardsEspañol
All Practice Exams

100+ Free Alibaba SysOps Administrator Practice Questions

Pass your Alibaba Cloud Certified Associate: SysOps Administrator (SOA-C01) exam on the first try — instant access, no signup required.

✓ No registration✓ No credit card✓ No hidden fees✓ Start practicing immediately
100+ Questions
100% Free
1 / 100
Question 1
Score: 0/0

Which Alibaba Cloud service lets administrators define infrastructure as code in JSON or YAML templates and provision the resources as a managed stack?

A
B
C
D
to track
Same family resources

Explore More Alibaba Cloud Certifications

Continue into nearby exams from the same family. Each card keeps practice questions, study guides, flashcards, videos, and articles in one place.

Alibaba Cloud Security Engineer (Associate)

Practice QuestionsStudy GuideCheat SheetFlashcards1 blog

Alibaba Cloud ACA Cloud Business

Practice Questions

Alibaba Cloud ACA Generative AI Engineer

Practice Questions

Alibaba Cloud Certified Associate (ACA) Cloud Computing

Practice Questions

Alibaba Cloud Certified Associate (ACA) Cloud Operator

Practice Questions

Alibaba Cloud Certified Associate Cloud Engineer (CEA-C01)

Practice Questions

More From This Family

Videos and articles for deeper review.

ArticleFREE Alibaba Cloud Security Associate (CSA-C01) Certification Guide 2026: Exam Format, Blueprint, Study Plan16 min read
2026 Statistics

Key Facts: Alibaba SysOps Administrator Exam

SOA-C01

Exam Code

Alibaba Cloud Academy

~$200

Exam Fee (USD, verify)

Commonly cited

~90 min

Exam Duration (verify)

Commonly cited

~70/100

Passing Score (verify)

Commonly cited

~50

Approximate Questions (verify)

Commonly cited

Replaces ACA System Operator

Retired Predecessor

Alibaba Cloud Academy

Alibaba Cloud Academy lists the Certified Associate: SysOps Administrator (exam code SOA-C01) as the operations-track associate certification that replaced the ACA System Operator (End of Life November 28, 2025; grace period ended February 27, 2026). Alibaba Cloud does not prominently publish the question count, duration, passing score, or fee; commonly cited figures are roughly 50 questions, about 90 minutes, around 70 out of 100 to pass, and a fee near USD $200 - these should be verified on the official certification page. The official course defines six modules: Identity and Access Management (RAM), Observability (CloudMonitor, ActionTrail, Log Service, ARMS), Resource Deployment and Network Management (ECS, VPC, SLB), Planning for Disaster Recovery (snapshots, Cloud Backup), Automating Deployment (ROS infrastructure as code, OOS), and Cost Optimization (preemptible and reserved instances).

Sample Alibaba SysOps Administrator Practice Questions

Try these sample questions to test your Alibaba SysOps Administrator exam readiness. Each question includes a detailed explanation. Start the interactive quiz above for the full 100+ question experience with AI tutoring.

1Which Alibaba Cloud service is the primary tool for managing user identities, permissions, and access to cloud resources?
A.Resource Access Management (RAM)
B.Resource Orchestration Service (ROS)
C.CloudMonitor
D.ActionTrail
Explanation: Resource Access Management (RAM) is Alibaba Cloud's identity and access management service. It lets you create RAM users, user groups, and roles, then attach policies that grant fine-grained permissions to specific resources and API actions. SysOps administrators use RAM to enforce least privilege across an account.
2A company wants to grant a third-party account temporary, controlled access to a few ECS APIs without sharing long-lived AccessKey credentials. Which RAM feature best fits this need?
A.A RAM user with a console password
B.A RAM role that the third party assumes via STS
C.The root account AccessKey
D.A custom policy attached to all users
Explanation: A RAM role has no permanent credentials. A trusted external account assumes the role through the Security Token Service (STS) and receives short-lived temporary credentials scoped to the role's policy. This avoids sharing long-lived AccessKeys and supports controlled cross-account access.
3In a RAM policy document, which element specifies the resources, in Alibaba Cloud Resource Name format, that an action is allowed or denied to act on?
A.Effect
B.Action
C.Resource
D.Condition
Explanation: A RAM policy statement uses Effect (Allow or Deny), Action (the API operations), Resource (the ARNs the statement applies to), and optional Condition. The Resource element identifies which specific resources the permission targets, supporting least-privilege scoping.
4Which approach lets an ECS instance call other Alibaba Cloud APIs securely without embedding AccessKey credentials in the application code?
A.Store the AccessKey in an environment variable
B.Share the root account AccessKey across instances
C.Hard-code the AccessKey in the user data script
D.Bind a RAM role to the ECS instance (instance RAM role)
Explanation: An instance RAM role lets an ECS instance obtain temporary STS credentials automatically through the metadata service. Applications on the instance call APIs without storing any AccessKey, and you control permissions by changing the attached role's policies. This is the recommended pattern for credential-free access.
5A SysOps administrator wants to require multi-factor authentication for all RAM users when they sign in to the console. What is the most scalable way to enforce this?
A.Set a RAM password policy and enforce MFA through RAM security settings
B.Manually ask each user to enable MFA
C.Disable console access for everyone
D.Rotate the root account password weekly
Explanation: RAM lets administrators define account-wide security settings, including a password policy and a requirement that users enable MFA. Enforcing MFA centrally through RAM is far more scalable and reliable than relying on each user to opt in voluntarily.
6Which Alibaba Cloud service records management-plane API calls across your account so you can audit who did what, when, and from where?
A.CloudMonitor
B.ActionTrail
C.Log Service (SLS)
D.ARMS
Explanation: ActionTrail records API calls and console operations across Alibaba Cloud services, capturing the identity, event time, source IP, and parameters. SysOps administrators use ActionTrail trails for security auditing, compliance, and tracing the cause of configuration changes.
7An administrator needs to retain ActionTrail events long-term and run queries over them. Which configuration achieves durable storage and analysis?
A.Rely only on the 90-day event history in the ActionTrail console
B.Export events manually each day to a spreadsheet
C.Create a trail that delivers events to OSS and/or a Log Service Logstore
D.Enable CloudMonitor site monitoring
Explanation: The ActionTrail console retains recent events for a limited window. To keep events long-term and query them, you create a trail that continuously delivers events to an OSS bucket for archival and/or to a Log Service Logstore for searching and analysis. This gives durable, queryable audit data.
8Which Alibaba Cloud service collects metrics such as CPU and memory usage from ECS instances and triggers alarms when thresholds are crossed?
A.ActionTrail
B.Server Migration Center
C.Resource Orchestration Service
D.CloudMonitor
Explanation: CloudMonitor gathers system and custom metrics from ECS and many other Alibaba Cloud services. SysOps administrators define alarm rules on these metrics so that when a threshold such as high CPU usage is breached, notifications and automated actions are triggered.
9To collect memory usage and process-level metrics from an ECS instance in CloudMonitor, what must be in place on the instance?
A.The CloudMonitor agent installed and running
B.A public IP address only
C.An attached NAS file system
D.An Elastic IP bound to the instance
Explanation: Basic host metrics like CPU and network are available without an agent, but operating-system-level metrics such as memory usage, disk usage, and process information require the CloudMonitor agent (host monitoring agent) running on the instance. Without the agent, those OS-level metrics will not appear.
10In CloudMonitor, what is the purpose of an alert contact group?
A.It stores backup snapshots of instances
B.It groups recipients so alarm notifications are sent to the right people
C.It defines auto scaling rules
D.It controls VPC routing
Explanation: An alert contact group is a collection of alert contacts. When an alarm rule fires, CloudMonitor sends notifications to the contact groups associated with that rule, so the appropriate on-call team is reached. Grouping contacts makes managing notification routing scalable.

About the Alibaba SysOps Administrator Exam

The Alibaba Cloud Certified Associate: SysOps Administrator (SOA-C01) validates that you can deploy, monitor, automate, and maintain workloads on Alibaba Cloud. It is the operations-track associate certification that replaced the retired ACA System Operator. The exam covers identity and access with RAM, observability with CloudMonitor, ActionTrail, Log Service, and ARMS, resource deployment and networking with ECS and VPC, Auto Scaling, disaster recovery and backup, automation with OOS and ROS, and cost optimization.

Questions

50 scored questions

Time Limit

90 minutes

Passing Score

~70/100

Exam Fee

~$200 (Alibaba Cloud Academy)

Alibaba SysOps Administrator Exam Content Outline

~15%

Identity and Access Management on Alibaba Cloud

Manage access with Resource Access Management (RAM) users, groups, roles, and policies, use STS temporary credentials and instance RAM roles, enforce MFA and password policy, and organize governance with Resource Groups and Resource Directory using least privilege.

~20%

Observability on Alibaba Cloud

Collect metrics with CloudMonitor host, site, event, and custom monitoring, configure alarm rules and contact groups, audit API activity with ActionTrail, centralize logs in Log Service (SLS) using Projects, Logstores, and Logtail, and trace applications with ARMS.

~22%

Resource Deployment and Network Management

Provision ECS instances with custom images and user data, build VPCs with VSwitches, security groups, route tables, NAT Gateways, and EIPs, distribute traffic with Server Load Balancer and health checks, connect networks with Cloud Enterprise Network, and design multi-zone high availability.

~13%

Auto Scaling and Elasticity

Configure Auto Scaling (ESS) scaling groups and scaling configurations, set minimum and maximum limits, use scheduled and event-triggered scaling with CloudMonitor alarms, apply cooldown periods, integrate with SLB, and rely on self-healing instance replacement.

~15%

Disaster Recovery, Backup, and Storage

Protect data with ECS snapshots and automatic snapshot policies, understand incremental snapshots and custom images, use Cloud Backup (HBR) and ApsaraDB RDS backups, apply OSS storage classes, lifecycle, and cross-region replication, and plan for RPO and RTO.

~15%

Automation, Operations, and Cost Optimization

Automate operations with Operation Orchestration Service (OOS) workflows, patching, and Cloud Assistant, define infrastructure as code with Resource Orchestration Service (ROS), tag resources, set billing budgets and alerts, right-size instances, and use subscription, reserved, and preemptible instances.

How to Pass the Alibaba SysOps Administrator Exam

What You Need to Know

  • Passing score: ~70/100
  • Exam length: 50 questions
  • Time limit: 90 minutes
  • Exam fee: ~$200

Keys to Passing

  • Complete 500+ practice questions
  • Score 80%+ consistently before scheduling
  • Focus on highest-weighted sections
  • Use our AI tutor for tough concepts

Alibaba SysOps Administrator Study Tips from Top Performers

1Spend the most time on resource deployment and networking: master ECS provisioning, VPC, VSwitches, security groups, route tables, NAT Gateways, EIPs, and Server Load Balancer health checks, since this is the heaviest area.
2Learn CloudMonitor thoroughly: the difference between host, site, event, and custom monitoring, when the host agent is required for memory and disk metrics, alarm consecutive-period logic, and contact groups.
3Understand the clear split between ROS (infrastructure as code that provisions stacks) and OOS (operations automation such as patching, Cloud Assistant commands, and approval workflows).
4Practice Auto Scaling end to end: scaling configuration versus scaling group, minimum and maximum limits, scheduled versus event-triggered scaling, cooldown periods, and SLB integration with self-healing.
5Know backup and recovery: automatic snapshot policies, incremental snapshots, custom images, Cloud Backup, OSS storage classes and cross-region replication, and how to express requirements as RPO and RTO.
6Review RAM least-privilege patterns: users, groups, roles, STS temporary credentials, instance RAM roles, MFA, Resource Groups, and policy conditions, plus cost levers like right-sizing and preemptible instances.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Alibaba Cloud SysOps Administrator (Associate) certification?

It is the operations-track associate certification from Alibaba Cloud Academy, exam code SOA-C01, that validates deploying, monitoring, automating, and maintaining workloads on Alibaba Cloud. It replaced the retired ACA System Operator certification.

What are the exam specs for SOA-C01?

Alibaba Cloud does not prominently publish the official question count, duration, passing score, or fee. Commonly cited figures are roughly 50 questions, about 90 minutes, around 70 out of 100 to pass, and a fee near USD $200. Always verify these on the official Alibaba Cloud Academy certification page before booking.

What topics does the SysOps Administrator exam cover?

The official course defines six modules: Identity and Access Management (RAM), Observability (CloudMonitor, ActionTrail, Log Service, ARMS), Resource Deployment and Network Management (ECS, VPC, SLB), Planning for Disaster Recovery (snapshots, Cloud Backup), Automating Deployment (ROS and OOS), and Cost Optimization.

Did this certification replace the ACA System Operator?

Yes. Alibaba Cloud Academy retired the ACA System Operator certification, with End of Life on November 28, 2025 and the grace period ending February 27, 2026. The SysOps Administrator (Associate), SOA-C01, is its successor.

What is the difference between OOS and ROS on Alibaba Cloud?

Resource Orchestration Service (ROS) is infrastructure as code that provisions and manages resource stacks from JSON or YAML templates. Operation Orchestration Service (OOS) automates ongoing operations such as patching, batch command execution, snapshots, and approval workflows. ROS builds the environment; OOS runs day-to-day operations on it.

What experience helps before taking SOA-C01?

Hands-on operations experience with core Alibaba Cloud services such as ECS, VPC, CloudMonitor, OSS, Auto Scaling, and snapshots is recommended. Prior associate-level cloud knowledge, such as the Cloud Engineering Associate path, also helps.