DVA-C02 Deployment Practice Question
A company is using AWS CodePipeline to automate the deployment of a microservices application to Amazon ECS. The pipeline has the following stages: Source (GitHub), Build (CodeBuild), Deploy (ECS). The Deploy stage uses an ECS task definition and updates the service. Recently, the pipeline failed at the Deploy stage with the error: 'The task definition family is inactive.' The developer checks the ECS console and sees that the task definition family exists but is inactive. The developer also notices that the pipeline uses a parameter 'TASK_DEFINITION_FAMILY' with the value 'my-app'. What is the most likely cause?
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
✓
The pipeline is referencing the task definition family name without a specific revision number, and the latest revision is inactive.
The error 'The task definition family is inactive' indicates that the pipeline is using the task definition family name 'my-app' without specifying a revision number. When a task definition family is marked as inactive, it means the latest revision in that family is inactive. CodePipeline requires a specific active revision number to deploy successfully. Therefore, the most likely cause is that the pipeline is referencing only the family name, and the latest revision is inactive. Option D correctly identifies this issue. Option A is incorrect because the family exists. Option B is incorrect because environment variables are unrelated to the error. Option C is incorrect because the pipeline's IAM role permissions are not the issue; the error is about the task definition state, not permissions.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The task definition family 'my-app' does not exist in the ECS cluster.
Why it's wrong here
The scenario explicitly states the developer confirmed the task definition family 'my-app' exists in the ECS console, it just shows an inactive status; a nonexistent family would instead surface a 'family does not exist' or resource-not-found error rather than the 'inactive' error reported here.
- ✗
The environment variables in the task definition are not correctly set.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect environment variables inside the task definition would cause the container to fail after it starts, such as an application crash or misconfiguration error, but they have no relationship to whether ECS considers a task definition family's latest revision active or inactive.
- ✗
The IAM role for ECS does not have permission to register new task definitions.
Why it's wrong here
Insufficient IAM permissions to register a new task definition would produce an explicit AccessDenied API error at the point CodePipeline attempts the registration call, not a message stating the family is inactive, since that error is generated by the ECS deployment action referencing a stale revision, not by IAM.
- ✓
The pipeline is referencing the task definition family name without a specific revision number, and the latest revision is inactive.
Why this is correct
When a pipeline references only the task definition family name (e.g., 'my-app') without pinning a revision number, ECS resolves it to the family's most recent revision; if that latest revision was deregistered and marked inactive, for example after a manual cleanup or rollback, the deploy action fails with exactly this 'family is inactive' error, so the fix is to reference an active revision explicitly or re-register one.
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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.