DVA-C02 Deployment Practice Question
A company is migrating a monolithic application to microservices on AWS. They want to use a blue/green deployment strategy for a new version of a service running on Amazon ECS with Fargate. The service is behind an Application Load Balancer. Which combination of actions should be taken to implement blue/green deployment with minimal downtime? (Choose the correct answer.)
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
✓
Use AWS CodeDeploy to orchestrate a blue/green deployment by creating a new task set and shifting traffic.
AWS CodeDeploy supports blue/green deployments on Amazon ECS with Fargate. It creates a new task set and gradually shifts traffic from the existing (blue) task set to the new (green) task set, minimizing downtime. Option A is incorrect because managing a second ALB and updating DNS is more complex and not the typical approach for ECS blue/green; AWS CodeDeploy automates this. Option C is incorrect because a rolling update updates the existing service in place, which may cause downtime or require careful orchestration; it is not a blue/green deployment. Option D is incorrect because manually creating a new target group and modifying the ALB listener rule is error-prone and does not provide automated traffic shifting or rollback capabilities.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Create a second ALB pointing to the new service, then update DNS to switch traffic.
Why it's wrong here
Creating a second Application Load Balancer (ALB) and then updating DNS records to switch traffic introduces significant risk of downtime. DNS propagation delays are unpredictable and can take minutes to hours, meaning some users will continue to be routed to the old service while others are directed to the new one, leading to an inconsistent user experience or service unavailability during the transition. This approach lacks the fine-grained traffic shifting control and immediate rollback capabilities required for modern, zero-downtime deployments on ECS.
- ✓
Use AWS CodeDeploy to orchestrate a blue/green deployment by creating a new task set and shifting traffic.
Why this is correct
This is the recommended approach for zero-downtime deployments on Amazon ECS. AWS CodeDeploy orchestrates a blue/green deployment by provisioning a completely new "green" task set alongside the existing "blue" one. It then incrementally shifts traffic from the blue environment to the green environment using the Application Load Balancer, allowing for thorough testing before full cutover. This method provides immediate rollback capabilities if issues arise, ensuring minimal impact and high availability during updates.
- ✗
Update the existing ECS service with the new task definition and allow rolling update.
Why it's wrong here
Updating an existing ECS service with a new task definition and relying on a rolling update strategy can lead to service degradation or temporary downtime. During a rolling update, old tasks are gradually stopped and replaced by new tasks, which means both versions of the application might be serving traffic simultaneously. If the new task definition has issues, it could cause errors for users as new tasks come online, and the service might experience reduced capacity or unavailability until all old tasks are replaced.
- ✗
Manually create a new target group with the new service and update the ALB listener rule.
Why it's wrong here
Manually creating a new target group, registering new tasks, and then updating the Application Load Balancer (ALB) listener rules to shift traffic is highly prone to human error and lacks automation. This process requires precise, coordinated manual steps, increasing the likelihood of misconfigurations, delays, or outages during deployment. Furthermore, it does not provide automated rollback mechanisms, making recovery from deployment failures significantly more complex and time-consuming.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every DVA-C02 question from scratch — 1,135 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DVA-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 DVA-C02 exam.