CLF-C02 Cloud Technology and Services Practice Question
A company hosts its primary web application on Amazon EC2 instances in the us-east-1 AWS Region. To meet disaster recovery requirements, the company has launched an identical set of EC2 instances in the eu-west-1 Region. The company wants to direct all user traffic to the us-east-1 endpoints under normal conditions. If us-east-1 becomes unhealthy due to a regional outage, traffic must be automatically redirected to the eu-west-1 endpoints. The company uses Amazon Route 53 as its DNS service. Which Route 53 routing policy should the company use to meet these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse failover routing with latency routing, assuming latency-based routing will automatically redirect traffic during an outage, but latency routing does not consider endpoint health and will not fail over.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Failover routing
Failover routing is the correct choice because it allows you to configure an active-passive setup where Route 53 health checks monitor the primary endpoint (us-east-1). If the health check fails, Route 53 automatically routes traffic to the secondary (eu-west-1) endpoint, meeting the disaster recovery requirement.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Geolocation routing
Why it's wrong here
Geolocation routing directs traffic based on the geographic location of the user's DNS resolver. It does not provide automatic failover if a region becomes unhealthy. It is used to localize content or restrict access by geography, not for active-passive failover.
When this WOULD be correct
A company needs to serve localized content (e.g., language-specific pages) and must route users from North America to us-east-1 and users from Europe to eu-west-1, regardless of endpoint health. Geolocation routing would be correct here.
- ✗
Latency routing
Why it's wrong here
Latency routing sends traffic to the endpoint with the lowest network latency for the user. While it can work with health checks to avoid unhealthy endpoints, it does not enforce a specific primary/secondary failover relationship as required by the company. The company wants a clear active-passive configuration, not dynamic latency-based selection.
When this WOULD be correct
A company wants to route users to the AWS region that provides the lowest latency for each user, improving performance. For example, a global gaming application that needs to minimize lag for players worldwide would use latency routing.
- ✓
Failover routing
Why this is correct
Failover routing is specifically designed for active-passive failover. You configure a primary and a secondary record. Route 53 uses health checks to monitor the primary endpoint; if it fails, traffic is automatically directed to the secondary endpoint. This exactly meets the company's requirement for normal traffic to us-east-1 with automatic redirection to eu-west-1 during a failure.
- ✗
Weighted routing
Why it's wrong here
Weighted routing distributes traffic across multiple endpoints based on relative weights. It is commonly used for A/B testing, canary deployments, or balancing traffic between regions. It does not provide automatic failover: if one endpoint becomes unhealthy, traffic is still sent to it unless health checks are explicitly configured to remove it from rotation, which still does not enforce a primary/secondary order.
When this WOULD be correct
A company wants to split traffic between two regions for load balancing or testing, e.g., send 90% of users to us-east-1 and 10% to eu-west-1, without automatic failover. Weighted routing would be correct.
Option-by-option analysis
Why each answer is right or wrong
Understanding why wrong answers are wrong — and when they would be correct — is what separates a 750 score from a 900. The CLF-C02 exam frequently reuses these exact scenarios with slightly different constraints.
✓Failover routingCorrect answer▾
Why this is correct
Failover routing is specifically designed for active-passive failover. You configure a primary and a secondary record. Route 53 uses health checks to monitor the primary endpoint; if it fails, traffic is automatically directed to the secondary endpoint. This exactly meets the company's requirement for normal traffic to us-east-1 with automatic redirection to eu-west-1 during a failure.
✗Geolocation routingWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Geolocation routing directs traffic based on the geographic location of the user, not the health of endpoints. It cannot automatically redirect traffic from a failed region to another; it only routes based on predefined location rules.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A company needs to serve localized content (e.g., language-specific pages) and must route users from North America to us-east-1 and users from Europe to eu-west-1, regardless of endpoint health. Geolocation routing would be correct here.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse 'geographic location of users' with 'geographic location of resources' and incorrectly assume that geolocation routing can handle regional failover by directing users away from an unhealthy region.
✗Latency routingWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Latency routing directs traffic based on the lowest latency for each user, not based on health checks or regional failover. It does not automatically redirect traffic from an unhealthy primary region to a secondary region.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A company wants to route users to the AWS region that provides the lowest latency for each user, improving performance. For example, a global gaming application that needs to minimize lag for players worldwide would use latency routing.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse latency-based routing with failover, thinking that lower latency implies better availability, or they may assume that latency routing inherently handles regional outages by directing users to the next fastest region.
✗Weighted routingWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Weighted routing distributes traffic across multiple endpoints based on assigned weights, but it does not automatically redirect all traffic to a secondary region when the primary becomes unhealthy. It lacks health-check-based failover capability.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A company wants to split traffic between two regions for load balancing or testing, e.g., send 90% of users to us-east-1 and 10% to eu-west-1, without automatic failover. Weighted routing would be correct.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may think weighted routing can be used to send all traffic to one region by setting its weight to 100, but they overlook that it does not automatically redirect on failure without manual weight changes.
Analysis generated from the official CLF-C02blueprint and verified against question context. The “when correct” sections are what AI assistants cite when candidates ask “what’s the difference between these options?”
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CLF-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CLF-C02 exam.