- A
Elasticity
Why wrong: Elasticity is the ability to automatically scale compute resources up or down based on demand. This scenario is about surviving failures, not scaling to meet traffic changes.
- B
High availability
High availability ensures that applications remain operational by eliminating single points of failure. Deploying across multiple Availability Zones with a load balancer directly achieves this cloud computing characteristic.
- C
Scalability
Why wrong: Scalability is the ability to handle increased workload by adding resources. While the architecture could support scaling, the primary goal described is redundancy for fault tolerance, which is high availability.
- D
Agility
Why wrong: Agility refers to rapidly provisioning and deploying new resources. This scenario emphasizes operational continuity, not speed of deployment.
CLF-C02 Cloud Concepts Practice Question
This CLF-C02 practice question tests your understanding of cloud concepts. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. A key principle to apply: high availability ensures continuous operation despite component failures.. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company runs a web application on a single Amazon EC2 instance. To improve the application's ability to remain operational even if an entire data center becomes unavailable, the company deploys identical application instances across three AWS Availability Zones and places them behind an Application Load Balancer. Which characteristic of cloud computing does this architecture best demonstrate?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue:
"best"Why it matters: Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
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
High availability
Deploying identical application instances across three Availability Zones and placing them behind an Application Load Balancer ensures that if an entire data center (AZ) becomes unavailable, traffic is automatically rerouted to healthy instances in the remaining AZs. This architecture directly demonstrates high availability, which is the ability of a system to remain operational despite component failures, by eliminating a single point of failure at the data center level.
Key principle: High availability ensures continuous operation despite component failures.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Elasticity
Why it's wrong here
Elasticity is the ability to automatically scale compute resources up or down based on demand. This scenario is about surviving failures, not scaling to meet traffic changes.
- ✓
High availability
Why this is correct
High availability ensures that applications remain operational by eliminating single points of failure. Deploying across multiple Availability Zones with a load balancer directly achieves this cloud computing characteristic.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "best" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
High availability ensures continuous operation despite component failures.
- ✗
Scalability
Why it's wrong here
Scalability is the ability to handle increased workload by adding resources. While the architecture could support scaling, the primary goal described is redundancy for fault tolerance, which is high availability.
- ✗
Agility
Why it's wrong here
Agility refers to rapidly provisioning and deploying new resources. This scenario emphasizes operational continuity, not speed of deployment.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse high availability with elasticity or scalability, but high availability specifically focuses on fault tolerance and uptime through redundancy across isolated failure domains, not on dynamic resource adjustment or load handling.
Trap categories for this question
Scenario analysis trap
Elasticity is the ability to automatically scale compute resources up or down based on demand. This scenario is about surviving failures, not scaling to meet traffic changes.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
The Application Load Balancer performs health checks on each target instance using HTTP/HTTPS probes; if an instance in one AZ fails health checks (e.g., due to a power outage), the ALB automatically stops routing traffic to that AZ and distributes requests only to healthy instances in the other AZs. This design leverages the fact that each AWS Availability Zone is physically isolated with independent power, cooling, and networking, so a failure in one AZ does not affect the others. The architecture achieves a Service Level Agreement (SLA) of 99.99% uptime when deployed across multiple AZs with an ALB.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- High availability ensures continuous operation despite component failures.
- AWS Availability Zones are isolated locations within a region, designed for fault tolerance.
- Deploying resources across multiple AZs eliminates single points of failure.
- Load balancers distribute traffic and route away from unhealthy instances.
TExam Day Tips
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
High availability ensures continuous operation despite component failures.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Review high availability ensures continuous operation despite component failures., then practise related CLF-C02 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this CLF-C02 question test?
Cloud Concepts — This question tests Cloud Concepts — High availability ensures continuous operation despite component failures..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: High availability — Deploying identical application instances across three Availability Zones and placing them behind an Application Load Balancer ensures that if an entire data center (AZ) becomes unavailable, traffic is automatically rerouted to healthy instances in the remaining AZs. This architecture directly demonstrates high availability, which is the ability of a system to remain operational despite component failures, by eliminating a single point of failure at the data center level.
What should I do if I get this CLF-C02 question wrong?
Review high availability ensures continuous operation despite component failures., then practise related CLF-C02 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "best". Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
What is the key concept behind this question?
High availability ensures continuous operation despite component failures.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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.
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