This DVA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of deployment. 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 developer is using AWS CloudFormation to create a stack. They want to update the stack but need to ensure that if the update fails, the stack is automatically rolled back to the previous state. Which stack option should they configure?
Configure SNS notification topics for the stack.
Why wrong: Notifications do not control rollback.
Set the 'Rollback on failure' option to 'Yes'.
This is the default behavior but can be explicitly set.
Set the 'Disable rollback' option to 'No'.
Why wrong: Disable rollback would prevent rollback.
Define a stack policy that protects critical resources.
Why wrong: Stack policies prevent updates to specific resources, not rollback on failure.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Set the 'Rollback on failure' option to 'Yes'.
Option B is correct because the 'Rollback on failure' option, when set to 'Yes', instructs AWS CloudFormation to automatically revert the stack to its previous working state if the stack update fails. This ensures that any changes that cause errors are undone, maintaining stack stability without manual intervention.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Configure SNS notification topics for the stack.
Why it's wrong here
Notifications do not control rollback.
Set the 'Rollback on failure' option to 'Yes'.
Why this is correct
This is the default behavior but can be explicitly set.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Set the 'Disable rollback' option to 'No'.
Why it's wrong here
Disable rollback would prevent rollback.
Define a stack policy that protects critical resources.
Why it's wrong here
Stack policies prevent updates to specific resources, not rollback on failure.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates confuse 'Disable rollback' with 'Rollback on failure' or think that SNS notifications or stack policies can control rollback behavior, but only the 'Rollback on failure' option directly enables automatic rollback on update failures.
Detailed technical explanation
Under the hood, CloudFormation uses a change set to determine the order of resource updates and, if 'Rollback on failure' is enabled, it monitors the stack status during the update. If any resource update fails (e.g., due to a resource limit or dependency error), CloudFormation automatically triggers a rollback by reversing the changes in the reverse order of the original update, using the previous stack template and parameters. In real-world scenarios, this is critical for production stacks where even a partial failure could leave resources in an inconsistent state, such as when updating an Auto Scaling group's launch configuration that references a deleted AMI.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
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
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FAQ
Deployment — This question tests Deployment — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Set the 'Rollback on failure' option to 'Yes'. — Option B is correct because the 'Rollback on failure' option, when set to 'Yes', instructs AWS CloudFormation to automatically revert the stack to its previous working state if the stack update fails. This ensures that any changes that cause errors are undone, maintaining stack stability without manual intervention.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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.
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