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SAA-C03 Practice Question 47: CloudFront Cache Hit Ratio

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) · Test 5 · question 7 of 10

Network Performancemedium

A CloudFront distribution fronts an ALB serving a product catalogue. Origin load is far higher than expected and CloudFront reports a low cache hit ratio. Investigation shows the application appends a per-visitor tracking query string such as ?sid=8f21c... to every URL, and that the cache policy currently includes all query strings in the cache key. Catalogue responses are identical regardless of sid.

What should the solutions architect change?

Select one answer
Show answer and explanation

Answer:

  • A. Use a cache policy that excludes sid from the cache key, so requests differing only by that parameter share a cache entry

The cache key determines what counts as the same object. Including a per-visitor query string puts a unique value in the key for every visitor, so each request is effectively a distinct object, nothing is ever reused, and almost everything goes to the origin. Narrowing the cache policy so sid is not part of the key lets all visitors requesting the same catalogue page share one cached entry, which raises the hit ratio and drops origin load. If the origin still needs to see the parameter, an origin request policy can forward it without adding it to the cache key.

Option B changes the geographic footprint, not the cacheability. More edge locations with a key that is unique per visitor simply spreads the same misses across more caches.

Option C makes the problem complete. no-store disables caching entirely, sending every request to the origin, the opposite of the goal.

Option D reduces bytes transferred for responses that are served, which is worthwhile but unrelated. Compression does not change how many requests reach the origin.

Reference: Increasing the proportion of requests served from the cache

Practice Test 5 ›

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