DVA-C02 Deployment Practice Question
A company uses AWS Elastic Beanstalk to run a web application. They want to deploy a new version with zero downtime and roll forward if successful. They have two environments: a production environment (current version) and a staging environment (new version). After verifying the staging environment, they want to swap the URLs so that production now points to the new version. Which deployment strategy should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse immutable deployments (which also launch new instances) with blue/green deployments, but immutable deployments do not create a separate environment with its own URL for a CNAME swap, making them unsuitable for the described two-environment swap requirement.
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
✓
Blue/green deployment with environment CNAME swap
Blue/green deployment with an environment CNAME swap allows you to run two separate Elastic Beanstalk environments (production and staging) simultaneously. After verifying the new version in the staging environment, you swap the CNAME records so that the production URL points to the staging environment, achieving zero downtime and a roll-forward strategy. This approach decouples the deployment from the existing environment, ensuring no disruption to live traffic during the swap.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Blue/green deployment with environment CNAME swap
Why this is correct
Blue/green deployment with environment CNAME swap is the most robust strategy for zero-downtime deployments and easy rollback. It involves creating a completely new, separate Elastic Beanstalk environment (the "green" environment) running the new application version, while the existing "blue" environment continues to serve traffic. After thorough testing of the green environment, the CNAME record of the load balancer is atomically swapped, redirecting all traffic to the new environment instantly. This approach ensures the new version is fully validated before going live and allows for immediate rollback by swapping the CNAME back.
- ✗
All at once deployment
Why it's wrong here
An "all at once" deployment updates every instance within the existing Elastic Beanstalk environment simultaneously. During this process, all instances are taken offline or become unavailable as the new application version is deployed and services are restarted. This method inherently causes significant downtime for the application, making it unsuitable for production environments requiring high availability.
- ✗
Rolling deployment with additional batch
Why it's wrong here
Rolling deployment with an additional batch updates instances in smaller groups within the existing environment, maintaining some capacity during the update. While this approach minimizes downtime compared to "all at once" by ensuring some instances remain active, it doesn't allow for comprehensive testing of the new application version in a fully isolated, production-like environment before it starts serving live traffic. The "additional batch" ensures capacity is maintained but doesn't change the fundamental limitation of testing within the live environment.
- ✗
Immutable deployment
Why it's wrong here
Immutable deployment launches a new Auto Scaling group with the new version and then swaps instances. It is similar to blue/green but within the same environment and does not use a separate environment for testing.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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