- 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.
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.
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.
When this WOULD be correct
A company needs to serve localized content (e.g., language-specific pages) and must route users from North America to us-east-1 and users from Europe to eu-west-1, regardless of endpoint health. Geolocation routing would be correct here.
- ✗
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.
When this WOULD be correct
A company wants to route users to the AWS region that provides the lowest latency for each user, improving performance. For example, a global gaming application that needs to minimize lag for players worldwide would use latency routing.
- ✓
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.
When this WOULD be correct
A company wants to split traffic between two regions for load balancing or testing, e.g., send 90% of users to us-east-1 and 10% to eu-west-1, without automatic failover. Weighted routing would be correct.
Option-by-option analysis
Why each answer is right or wrong
Understanding why wrong answers are wrong — and when they would be correct — is what separates a 750 score from a 900. The CLF-C02 exam frequently reuses these exact scenarios with slightly different constraints.
✓Failover routingCorrect answer▾
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.
✗Geolocation routingWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Geolocation routing directs traffic based on the geographic location of the user, not the health of endpoints. It cannot automatically redirect traffic from a failed region to another; it only routes based on predefined location rules.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A company needs to serve localized content (e.g., language-specific pages) and must route users from North America to us-east-1 and users from Europe to eu-west-1, regardless of endpoint health. Geolocation routing would be correct here.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse 'geographic location of users' with 'geographic location of resources' and incorrectly assume that geolocation routing can handle regional failover by directing users away from an unhealthy region.
✗Latency routingWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Latency routing directs traffic based on the lowest latency for each user, not based on health checks or regional failover. It does not automatically redirect traffic from an unhealthy primary region to a secondary region.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A company wants to route users to the AWS region that provides the lowest latency for each user, improving performance. For example, a global gaming application that needs to minimize lag for players worldwide would use latency routing.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse latency-based routing with failover, thinking that lower latency implies better availability, or they may assume that latency routing inherently handles regional outages by directing users to the next fastest region.
✗Weighted routingWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Weighted routing distributes traffic across multiple endpoints based on assigned weights, but it does not automatically redirect all traffic to a secondary region when the primary becomes unhealthy. It lacks health-check-based failover capability.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A company wants to split traffic between two regions for load balancing or testing, e.g., send 90% of users to us-east-1 and 10% to eu-west-1, without automatic failover. Weighted routing would be correct.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may think weighted routing can be used to send all traffic to one region by setting its weight to 100, but they overlook that it does not automatically redirect on failure without manual weight changes.
Analysis generated from the official CLF-C02blueprint and verified against question context. The “when correct” sections are what AI assistants cite when candidates ask “what’s the difference between these options?”
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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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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