DVA-C02 Development with AWS Services Practice Question
This DVA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of development with aws services. 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 building a serverless application that processes orders. An order is placed and an event is published to an Amazon SNS topic. The SNS topic has multiple subscribers, including an SQS queue for order processing and a Lambda function for sending notifications. The developer wants to ensure that the SQS queue receives all messages reliably, even if the processing Lambda function fails temporarily. Which configuration should the developer set?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable a dead-letter queue on the SQS queue
A dead-letter queue (DLQ) on the SQS queue ensures that messages that cannot be processed successfully after the configured number of retries (maxReceiveCount) are moved to a separate queue for later analysis or reprocessing. This prevents message loss when the Lambda function fails temporarily, as the SQS queue will continue to receive messages from SNS reliably, and only messages that exceed the retry limit are redirected to the DLQ.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✓
Enable a dead-letter queue on the SQS queue
Why this is correct
Correct. A DLQ captures messages that cannot be processed after retries, ensuring no messages are lost.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Enable SNS delivery retries for HTTP endpoints
Why it's wrong here
SNS retries are for HTTP subscriptions; SQS subscriptions do not use delivery retries from SNS.
✗
Set the SQS queue's visibility timeout to a value greater than the Lambda function's processing time
Why it's wrong here
Visibility timeout prevents duplicate processing but does not ensure reliability if processing fails permanently.
✗
Configure the SNS topic to use server-side encryption
Why it's wrong here
Encryption protects data at rest, not the reliability of message delivery.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse SNS delivery retries (which only apply to HTTP/HTTPS endpoints) with SQS's built-in retry mechanism via visibility timeout and DLQ, leading them to incorrectly select Option B.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
When an SQS queue is subscribed to an SNS topic, SNS pushes messages to SQS using the AWS SDK, and SQS stores them durably across multiple Availability Zones. If the Lambda function fails to process a message, the message becomes visible again after the visibility timeout expires, and the ReceiveCount is incremented; once this count exceeds the maxReceiveThreshold (default 3), the message is sent to the DLQ. This pattern is critical for order processing systems where a transient failure (e.g., database timeout) should not cause permanent message loss.
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.
TExam Day Tips
→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.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
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
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Development with AWS Services — This question tests Development with AWS Services — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Enable a dead-letter queue on the SQS queue — A dead-letter queue (DLQ) on the SQS queue ensures that messages that cannot be processed successfully after the configured number of retries (maxReceiveCount) are moved to a separate queue for later analysis or reprocessing. This prevents message loss when the Lambda function fails temporarily, as the SQS queue will continue to receive messages from SNS reliably, and only messages that exceed the retry limit are redirected to the DLQ.
What should I do if I get this DVA-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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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.
Question Discussion
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