- A
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Correct. AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a PaaS that abstracts the underlying infrastructure (EC2, load balancers, scaling) and automatically manages deployment, scaling, and health monitoring. Developers can upload code and configure scaling and rollback policies without managing servers.
- B
Amazon EC2 with Auto Scaling groups and an Application Load Balancer
Why wrong: Incorrect. While this combination provides scaling and load balancing, it requires the team to manually configure and manage EC2 instances, security groups, and the load balancer. This does not meet the requirement to avoid managing the underlying infrastructure.
- C
AWS Lambda
Why wrong: Incorrect. AWS Lambda runs code in response to events and is designed for stateless, short-lived functions. It is not intended for hosting a complete web application with persistent connections or long-running processes, making it unsuitable for this scenario.
- D
Amazon ECS using the EC2 launch type
Why wrong: Incorrect. Amazon ECS with the EC2 launch type gives the team control over container placement and cluster management, but they must still manage the EC2 instances in the cluster, including patching and scaling the underlying instances. This does not eliminate infrastructure management.
Quick Answer
The answer is AWS Elastic Beanstalk, the correct AWS PaaS service for deploying web apps without managing infrastructure. Elastic Beanstalk abstracts the underlying EC2 instances, load balancers, and Auto Scaling groups, allowing you to upload your code while it automatically handles capacity provisioning, load balancing, scaling, and health monitoring. You retain full control over scaling configuration, application version updates, and rollbacks via the console or CLI, without touching the infrastructure directly. On the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 exam, this question tests your understanding of the PaaS model versus IaaS services like EC2; a common trap is choosing AWS Lambda (serverless) or Amazon ECS (container orchestration), but Elastic Beanstalk is the right fit when you need automatic scaling and high availability with the ability to manage code versions and rollbacks. Remember the mnemonic: “Elastic Beanstalk: You bring the code, it brings the stack.”
CLF-C02 Cloud Technology and Services Practice Question
This CLF-C02 practice question tests your understanding of cloud technology and services. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. 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 development team needs to deploy a web application on AWS. They want to avoid managing the underlying infrastructure, such as EC2 instances and load balancers, but still need the ability to control scaling, update the application code, and perform rollbacks. The application must scale automatically based on demand and remain highly available. Which AWS service should the team use?
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
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
AWS Elastic Beanstalk is the correct choice because it provides a Platform as a Service (PaaS) model that abstracts the underlying EC2 instances, load balancers, and Auto Scaling groups. It allows the team to upload their application code, and Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles capacity provisioning, load balancing, scaling, and health monitoring. The team retains control over scaling configuration, application version updates, and rollbacks through the Elastic Beanstalk console or CLI, without managing the infrastructure directly.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Why this is correct
Correct. AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a PaaS that abstracts the underlying infrastructure (EC2, load balancers, scaling) and automatically manages deployment, scaling, and health monitoring. Developers can upload code and configure scaling and rollback policies without managing servers.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Amazon EC2 with Auto Scaling groups and an Application Load Balancer
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. While this combination provides scaling and load balancing, it requires the team to manually configure and manage EC2 instances, security groups, and the load balancer. This does not meet the requirement to avoid managing the underlying infrastructure.
- ✗
AWS Lambda
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. AWS Lambda runs code in response to events and is designed for stateless, short-lived functions. It is not intended for hosting a complete web application with persistent connections or long-running processes, making it unsuitable for this scenario.
- ✗
Amazon ECS using the EC2 launch type
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Amazon ECS with the EC2 launch type gives the team control over container placement and cluster management, but they must still manage the EC2 instances in the cluster, including patching and scaling the underlying instances. This does not eliminate infrastructure management.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse AWS Elastic Beanstalk with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, thinking that Auto Scaling alone meets the 'no infrastructure management' requirement, but Auto Scaling still requires managing the underlying EC2 instances and load balancer configuration.
Trap categories for this question
Scenario analysis trap
Incorrect. AWS Lambda runs code in response to events and is designed for stateless, short-lived functions. It is not intended for hosting a complete web application with persistent connections or long-running processes, making it unsuitable for this scenario.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Elastic Beanstalk uses a pre-configured stack (e.g., Apache/Nginx for PHP, Tomcat for Java) and automatically provisions an Auto Scaling group, an Application Load Balancer, and a CloudWatch alarm for scaling. Under the hood, it creates a CloudFormation stack to manage resources, and the team can customize the environment by providing configuration files (.ebextensions) or using the Elastic Beanstalk CLI for blue/green deployments. A real-world scenario is deploying a Node.js web app where Elastic Beanstalk handles SSL termination at the load balancer and automatically replaces unhealthy instances, while the team can roll back to a previous version via the environment's 'Application Versions' panel.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
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
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
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.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this CLF-C02 question test?
Cloud Technology and Services — This question tests Cloud Technology and Services — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: AWS Elastic Beanstalk — AWS Elastic Beanstalk is the correct choice because it provides a Platform as a Service (PaaS) model that abstracts the underlying EC2 instances, load balancers, and Auto Scaling groups. It allows the team to upload their application code, and Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles capacity provisioning, load balancing, scaling, and health monitoring. The team retains control over scaling configuration, application version updates, and rollbacks through the Elastic Beanstalk console or CLI, without managing the infrastructure directly.
What should I do if I get this CLF-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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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