DOP-C02 SDLC Automation Practice Question
Network Topology
Refer to the exhibit. A DevOps engineer ran the above AWS CLI command after a CloudFormation stack update. What does the status 'ROLLBACK_COMPLETE' indicate?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse 'ROLLBACK_COMPLETE' with a successful operation or a deletion, when in fact it specifically means the update failed and the stack was reverted to its prior state.
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
✓
The stack update failed and CloudFormation reverted to the previous stack.
The 'ROLLBACK_COMPLETE' status indicates that the CloudFormation stack update operation failed, and CloudFormation automatically reverted the stack to its previous stable state. This is a built-in safety mechanism: if any resource fails to update, CloudFormation triggers a rollback to undo all changes made during the update, ensuring the stack returns to its last known good configuration.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The stack update is in progress.
Why it's wrong here
An in-progress update would be surfaced as UPDATE_IN_PROGRESS (or one of the related transitional states like UPDATE_COMPLETE_CLEANUP_IN_PROGRESS), and CloudFormation would still be executing the change set. The terminal status ROLLBACK_COMPLETE shows that the update attempt has already ended, not that it is currently running. This status is reached only after a failed update has been fully reverted, so interpreting it as an ongoing operation misreads the stack lifecycle.
- ✗
The stack was deleted successfully.
Why it's wrong here
If the stack had been deleted, the terminal status would be DELETE_COMPLETE, and the stack itself would no longer appear in the describe-stacks output. During deletion CloudFormation removes the stack and all its resources, whereas ROLLBACK_COMPLETE means the stack still exists and has been restored to its previous known-good state. A deletion that fails leaves the status DELETE_FAILED, so ROLLBACK_COMPLETE cannot represent a successful deletion.
- ✗
The stack was created successfully.
Why it's wrong here
A successful creation is always reported as CREATE_COMPLETE; ROLLBACK_COMPLETE is a failure signal, not a success signal. In fact, if a create-stack call fails, CloudFormation rolls back and enters ROLLBACK_COMPLETE, but here the command is update-stack, and the stack already existed and had been updated previously. Because ROLLBACK_COMPLETE only describes the outcome of a failed operation that was reverted, it cannot indicate that the stack was created cleanly.
- ✓
The stack update failed and CloudFormation reverted to the previous stack.
Why this is correct
When an update operation fails, CloudFormation automatically initiates a rollback to the stack's previous template and resources, and ROLLBACK_COMPLETE is the final state after that restoration finishes. The stack is still present and functional from its prior state, but the attempted changes were discarded. This is the only status in the output that matches both the 'update' command and the terminal rollback outcome, so it directly confirms a failed update followed by a rollback.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DOP-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 DOP-C02 exam.