← CLF-C02·Amazon Web Services

Question 330 of 1,024

Cloud Technology and Services →mediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

Quick Answer

The answer is failover routing, because it directly implements the active-passive disaster recovery model described in the scenario. With failover routing, you designate a primary resource (the us-east-1 EC2 instances) and a secondary resource (the eu-west-1 instances), then attach a Route 53 health check to the primary endpoint. If that health check fails—indicating an outage—Route 53 automatically redirects all traffic to the secondary region, fulfilling the requirement for automatic traffic redirection without manual intervention. On the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 exam, this question tests your understanding of Route 53 routing policies in the context of high availability and disaster recovery. A common trap is confusing failover routing with weighted routing, but remember: failover is strictly for active-passive setups, while weighted distributes traffic across multiple endpoints. A simple memory tip is “Failover = Fallback”—when the primary fails, traffic falls over to the backup.

CLF-C02 Cloud Technology and Services Practice Question

This CLF-C02 practice question tests your understanding of cloud technology and services. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 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?

Clue words in this question

Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.

Clue: "primary"
Why it matters: Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.

Question 1mediummultiple choice

Read the full DNS explanation →

A
Geolocation routing
Why wrong: 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.
B
Latency routing
Why wrong: 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.
C
Failover routing
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.
D
Weighted routing
Why wrong: 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.

Full breakdown with real-world context →

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.

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.

✗
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.
✗
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.
✓
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.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "primary" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
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.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates 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.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Failover routing in Route 53 relies on health checks that can monitor an endpoint via HTTP, HTTPS, or TCP, or use CloudWatch alarms. When the primary record's health check fails, Route 53 returns the secondary record's IP address in DNS responses, with a TTL that can be set as low as 60 seconds to speed up failover. In a real-world scenario, you would pair this with an Elastic Load Balancer in each region and use Route 53 alias records to point to the load balancer DNS names for seamless failover.

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

A cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.

What to study next

Got this wrong? Here's your next step.

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

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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: 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.

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.

Are there clue words in this question I should notice?

Yes — watch for: "primary". Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.

What is the key concept behind this question?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

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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.