ANS-C01 Network Design Practice Question
A company is deploying a web application on EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB) in a VPC. The application must be accessible from the internet. Which component must be attached to the VPC to allow internet traffic to reach the ALB?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse the NAT gateway (which provides outbound-only internet access) with the Internet Gateway (which provides bidirectional internet access), leading them to select the NAT gateway for inbound traffic scenarios.
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
✓
Internet gateway
An Internet Gateway (IGW) is a horizontally scaled, redundant component that allows communication between a VPC and the internet. For an Application Load Balancer (ALB) to receive traffic from the internet, the ALB must be deployed in public subnets, and those subnets must have a route table entry pointing 0.0.0.0/0 to an IGW. Without the IGW, the ALB cannot accept inbound connections from the internet.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
NAT gateway
Why it's wrong here
NAT gateway provides outbound internet access for private subnets, not inbound.
- ✗
Virtual private gateway
Why it's wrong here
Virtual private gateway is for VPN connections.
- ✓
Internet gateway
Why this is correct
An internet gateway is required for internet traffic to reach resources in a VPC.
- ✗
Transit gateway
Why it's wrong here
Transit gateway is for interconnecting networks.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This ANS-C01 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 ANS-C01 exam.