A company uses AWS Elastic Beanstalk to run a web application. They want to deploy a new version with zero downtime. They have a production environment running the current version and a staging environment running the new version. After thoroughly testing the staging environment, they want to swap the URLs so that production now points to the new version. Which deployment strategy should they use?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
Best answer
Blue/green deployment with CNAME swap
This strategy uses two separate environments and swaps their CNAME records, enabling zero-downtime switching to the new version.
Distractor review
Rolling deployment
Rolling deployment updates instances in batches, which can cause temporary performance degradation and does not allow for easy URL swap.
Distractor review
Immutable deployment
Immutable deployment launches new instances with the new version and then terminates old ones, but it does not involve swapping URLs between environments.
Distractor review
All at once deployment
All at once updates all instances simultaneously, causing downtime during the update.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
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.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- 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.
Related practice questions
Related DVA-C02 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A developer is building a REST API using Amazon API Gateway that will serve static content from an Amazon S3 bucket. The API should cache responses for frequently accessed objects to reduce latency. Which API Gateway feature should the developer enable?
Question 2
A developer is running a web application on multiple Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application needs to store user session state that must be available across all instances. The session data is small and temporary but must survive individual instance failures. Which AWS service should the developer use to store this session state?
Question 3
A developer has an AWS Lambda function that processes messages from an Amazon SQS standard queue. The function is idempotent and currently has a batch size of 10. The developer wants to increase throughput and increases the batch size to 100. After the change, CloudWatch metrics show a significant increase in throttles and the queue backlog is growing. The function's reserved concurrency is set to 10. What is the most effective action to resolve the throttling and improve throughput?
Question 4
A developer is managing an application running on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. Users report that the application becomes unresponsive after several hours, and restarting the instance temporarily fixes the issue. The developer suspects a memory leak but cannot add custom instrumentation. Which AWS service can collect memory utilization metrics and help identify the memory leak with minimal configuration?
Question 5
A developer is building a serverless web application using AWS Lambda and Amazon DynamoDB. The application needs to perform complex aggregations on data stored in DynamoDB. Which AWS service should the developer use to perform these aggregations efficiently without reading all the data into Lambda?
Question 6
A developer has an Amazon S3 bucket containing private user documents. The application must generate a time-limited URL for users to download their own documents without requiring the users to have AWS credentials. Which solution should the developer use?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this DVA-C02 question test?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Blue/green deployment with CNAME swap — Elastic Beanstalk supports blue/green deployments where two separate environments (blue and green) are created. The developer can deploy the new version to the staging environment, test it, and then perform a CNAME swap with the production environment. This swaps the environment URLs, achieving zero downtime. Rolling deployment updates instances in-place and can cause some downtime or performance impact. Immutable deployment launches new instances but does not swap URLs. All at once updates all instances simultaneously, causing downtime.
What should I do if I get this DVA-C02 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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