- A
Amazon CloudFront with an origin pointing to the Auto Scaling group
Why wrong: CloudFront is not a load balancer; it caches content at edge locations.
- B
Network Load Balancer
Why wrong: NLB does not offload SSL at the load balancer level.
- C
Application Load Balancer
ALB provides SSL termination, health checks, and integrates with Auto Scaling.
- D
Classic Load Balancer
Why wrong: Classic Load Balancer is legacy and lacks advanced features.
Question 335 of 1,705
ANS-C01 Network Design Practice Question
This ANS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of network design. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. 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 wants to design a highly available architecture for a web application that runs on EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group across multiple Availability Zones. The application must be able to handle sudden traffic spikes. Which load balancing solution provides the best combination of high availability, automatic scaling, and SSL offloading?
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
✓
Application Load Balancer
The Application Load Balancer (ALB) is the correct choice because it operates at Layer 7, supports content-based routing, integrates natively with Auto Scaling groups for automatic scaling, and provides SSL offloading (TLS termination) at the load balancer. This combination ensures high availability across multiple Availability Zones while handling sudden traffic spikes through elastic scaling of both the ALB and the backend EC2 instances.
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.
- ✗
Amazon CloudFront with an origin pointing to the Auto Scaling group
Why it's wrong here
CloudFront is not a load balancer; it caches content at edge locations.
- ✗
Network Load Balancer
Why it's wrong here
NLB does not offload SSL at the load balancer level.
- ✓
Application Load Balancer
Why this is correct
ALB provides SSL termination, health checks, and integrates with Auto Scaling.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Classic Load Balancer
Why it's wrong here
Classic Load Balancer is legacy and lacks advanced features.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The ANS-C01 exam often tests the misconception that a Network Load Balancer (NLB) is always the best for high availability and scaling, but candidates forget that SSL offloading is a Layer 7 function that only the Application Load Balancer (or Classic Load Balancer with limited support) can perform natively.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, the ALB uses a distributed node architecture that scales automatically based on traffic, and it supports TLS termination via AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) or IAM, offloading CPU-intensive decryption from EC2 instances. In real-world scenarios, sudden traffic spikes (e.g., flash sales) are handled by the ALB's connection queue and its ability to distribute requests across healthy targets in multiple Availability Zones, while the Auto Scaling group adds capacity based on CloudWatch metrics like request count per target.
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
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this ANS-C01 question test?
Network Design — This question tests Network Design — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Application Load Balancer — The Application Load Balancer (ALB) is the correct choice because it operates at Layer 7, supports content-based routing, integrates natively with Auto Scaling groups for automatic scaling, and provides SSL offloading (TLS termination) at the load balancer. This combination ensures high availability across multiple Availability Zones while handling sudden traffic spikes through elastic scaling of both the ALB and the backend EC2 instances.
What should I do if I get this ANS-C01 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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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026
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.
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