CLF-C02 Cloud Technology and Services Practice Question
A company wants to deploy a web application and have AWS handle the infrastructure, OS, and runtime — they only want to manage the application code and configuration. Which AWS service provides this experience?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse AWS Elastic Beanstalk with AWS Lambda, thinking both are 'serverless' — but Elastic Beanstalk is a PaaS that runs on provisioned servers (EC2 instances), while Lambda is truly serverless and event-driven, making Lambda unsuitable for hosting a full web application with persistent runtime requirements.
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 a Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering that automatically handles the provisioning of underlying infrastructure (EC2 instances, load balancers, auto-scaling groups), the operating system, and the runtime environment (e.g., Java, Python, Node.js). The customer only needs to upload their application code and configuration, and Elastic Beanstalk manages the deployment, capacity provisioning, load balancing, and health monitoring, matching the requirement exactly.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon EC2
Why it's wrong here
Amazon EC2 is raw Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) that gives you virtual machines with no built-in application deployment, auto scaling, or load balancing. You must manually patch the operating system, install and configure the runtime, secure the instance, and build your own scaling and health-check mechanisms. This operational overhead is far higher than the automated PaaS experience Elastic Beanstalk provides.
- ✓
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Why this is correct
AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) that abstracts away the underlying infrastructure: you supply your application code (e.g., Java, Python, Node.js) and choose a platform version, and Beanstalk automatically provisions EC2 instances, a load balancer, auto scaling, and health monitoring. You get the benefits of a managed environment while retaining the ability to access and customize the underlying resources if needed. It is the most direct way to deploy an existing web application without re-architecting.
- ✗
AWS Lambda
Why it's wrong here
AWS Lambda is Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) that is more abstracted than Beanstalk, but it forces you to decompose your application into discrete, stateless functions triggered by events such as API Gateway requests or S3 changes. A traditional web app with persistent sessions, a monolithic codebase, or long-running processes would require substantial restructuring to run on Lambda. Elastic Beanstalk accepts your application nearly as-is, making it the better choice for a standard web app deployment.
- ✗
Amazon ECS
Why it's wrong here
Amazon ECS requires you to define task definitions, select container images, allocate CPU/memory, configure networking, and manage cluster infrastructure—even when using Fargate. It is a container orchestration platform, not a fully managed application deployment service, so you must design and operate the containerized environment. Elastic Beanstalk eliminates these container-level decisions by letting you simply upload your code and letting the service handle provisioning.
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JA
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.