Question

A CloudOps engineer manages an EC2 Auto Scaling group that uses a launch template. The security team releases a hardened AMI monthly, and the engineer updates the launch template by creating a new version each time with the new AMI ID. However, when the Auto Scaling group scales out, newly launched instances continue to use the older AMI from the previous month. The Auto Scaling group is configured to use the launch template with version set to a specific number. What is the MOST appropriate change to ensure new instances always launch with the newest hardened AMI without manual reconfiguration each month?

Accepted Answer

Set the Auto Scaling group's launch template version to '$Latest' so it automatically uses the most recently created template version.

Answer

Enable instance refresh on the Auto Scaling group and rely on it to detect the new AMI automatically.

Answer

Set the Auto Scaling group's launch template version to '$Default' and leave the default version pointing at the original template version.

Answer

Replace the launch template with a launch configuration that references the AMI ID directly.