The answer is to add an Elastic Load Balancer health check to the deployment group, along with using a rolling deployment configuration and lifecycle hooks. These three actions directly improve CodeDeploy deployment health by ensuring that only healthy instances serve traffic, failures are contained to a single instance, and application validation occurs before an instance is marked as healthy. On the AWS Certified Developer Associate DVA-C02 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of deployment strategies and health checks within Auto Scaling groups—a common trap is assuming that simply increasing instance count or modifying the deployment group’s traffic routing will fix failures, when the real solution lies in gradual rollouts and pre-deployment validation. Remember the mnemonic “Hooks, Health, One-at-a-Time” to recall the three pillars: lifecycle hooks for testing, ELB health checks for early failure detection, and CodeDeployDefault.OneAtATime to minimize blast radius.
DVA-C02 Deployment Practice Question
This DVA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of deployment. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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 company is using AWS CodeDeploy to deploy an application to an Auto Scaling group. The deployment group has a deployment configuration of CodeDeployDefault.AllAtOnce. During a deployment, some instances fail the deployment. Which THREE actions should the developer take to improve the deployment health?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Change the deployment configuration to CodeDeployDefault.OneAtATime.
Option A (use CodeDeployDefault.OneAtATime) is correct because it reduces risk by deploying to one instance at a time. Option B (add a health check) is correct to catch issues early. Option D (use lifecycle hooks) is correct to run tests before instances are marked healthy. Option C is wrong because it does not help with deployment failures. Option E is wrong because it does not affect deployment health.
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.
✗
Increase the minimum number of healthy instances in the Auto Scaling group.
Why it's wrong here
Does not directly improve deployment.
✓
Change the deployment configuration to CodeDeployDefault.OneAtATime.
Why this is correct
Deploys to one instance at a time, reducing blast radius.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Configure a lifecycle hook to run validation tests before the instance is marked as healthy.
Why this is correct
Validates application health.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use a larger instance type to handle the deployment load.
Why it's wrong here
Not related to deployment health.
✓
Add an Elastic Load Balancer health check to the deployment group.
Why this is correct
Ensures only healthy instances receive traffic.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
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.
Detailed technical explanation
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.
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 DVA-C02 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
Deployment — This question tests Deployment — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Change the deployment configuration to CodeDeployDefault.OneAtATime. — Option A (use CodeDeployDefault.OneAtATime) is correct because it reduces risk by deploying to one instance at a time. Option B (add a health check) is correct to catch issues early. Option D (use lifecycle hooks) is correct to run tests before instances are marked healthy. Option C is wrong because it does not help with deployment failures. Option E is wrong because it does not affect deployment health.
What should I do if I get this DVA-C02 question wrong?
Identify which DVA-C02 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
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These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A developer is using AWS CodeDeploy to deploy an application to an Auto Scaling group. The deployment is set to use a 'OneAtATime' deployment configuration. The developer wants to ensure that the deployment does not cause downtime. Which TWO configurations are necessary?
hard
A.Set the 'IgnoreApplicationStopFailures' flag to true.
✓ B.Configure a load balancer for the Auto Scaling group.
C.Use an 'AllAtOnce' deployment configuration.
✓ D.Configure health checks on the load balancer.
E.Install the CodeDeploy agent on each instance.
Why B: Option A and Option D are correct. A load balancer is necessary to route traffic away from instances being updated. Health checks ensure that the instance is healthy before traffic is routed back. Option B is wrong because 'AllAtOnce' would cause downtime. Option C is wrong because 'IgnoreApplicationStopFailures' would ignore failures, potentially causing issues. Option E is wrong because CodeDeploy agent can be installed on the instance, but it is necessary for deployment, not specifically for zero downtime.
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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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