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CLF-C02 Cloud Technology and Services Practice Question

Which AWS service provides a fully managed environment for creating, maintaining, and documenting APIs using REST, HTTP, and WebSocket protocols?

⚠ Common exam trap

Candidates often confuse AWS AppSync (which also supports real-time data via GraphQL subscriptions) with API Gateway's WebSocket support, but AppSync does not provide REST or HTTP API creation, and it uses GraphQL as its sole protocol.

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

✓

Amazon API Gateway

Amazon API Gateway is the correct service because it is a fully managed service that enables developers to create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs at any scale. It specifically supports RESTful APIs, HTTP APIs (for lower-latency and simpler integrations), and WebSocket APIs (for real-time two-way communication), making it the only AWS service that natively covers all three protocol types in a managed environment.

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 AppSync

    Why it's wrong here

    AWS AppSync is a managed GraphQL service that provides real-time data synchronization and offline capabilities for application data, not a general-purpose REST/HTTP API gateway. While it can expose APIs, it is optimized for GraphQL clients and lacks the native REST/WebSocket API management features, such as REST-specific throttling and caching policies, that API Gateway offers.

  • ✓

    Amazon API Gateway

    Why this is correct

    Amazon API Gateway is a fully managed service that enables developers to create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure REST, HTTP, and WebSocket APIs at any scale. It provides built-in features like request throttling, API key management, custom authorizers, caching, and integration with AWS Lambda for serverless backends. As the correct answer, it is the AWS service specifically designed to act as the front-end HTTP interface for API-based workloads.

  • ✗

    Elastic Load Balancing

    Why it's wrong here

    Elastic Load Balancing transparently distributes incoming network traffic across multiple targets, such as EC2 instances, containers, and IP addresses, to improve availability and fault tolerance. It operates at the transport or request level but does not provide API-centric capabilities like API keys, usage plans, throttling, or API versioning, so it is not a substitute for API Gateway.

  • ✗

    AWS Lambda

    Why it's wrong here

    AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that executes code in response to triggers, such as API calls, and scales automatically. It provides the business logic behind an API, but it cannot manage the API lifecycle, handle RESTful routing, or provide authentication, throttling, and caching, which are responsibilities of an API Gateway.

About these practice questions

One of 993 original CLF-C02 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →

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Same concept, more angles

1 more way this is tested on CLF-C02

These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.

Variation 1. Which AWS service makes it easy for developers to create, publish, and manage APIs that act as the front door for applications to access backend services?

easy
  • A.Amazon CloudFront
  • B.Elastic Load Balancing
  • ✓ C.Amazon API Gateway
  • D.AWS App Runner

Why C: Amazon API Gateway is a fully managed service that enables developers to create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs at any scale. It acts as a front door for applications to access backend services such as AWS Lambda, Amazon EC2, or any publicly accessible web endpoint, handling all the tasks involved in accepting and processing up to hundreds of thousands of concurrent API calls.

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.