SAA-C03 Question 133
Single answerA company hosts a web application with dynamic and static content. They want to distribute incoming traffic across multiple EC2 instances and ensure that the application can handle HTTP and HTTPS traffic. Additionally, they want to offload SSL/TLS termination to reduce the workload on the EC2 instances. Which AWS service and configuration should they use?
- A
Use an Application Load Balancer with listeners configured for both HTTP and HTTPS, and enable SSL/TLS termination.
- B
Use a Network Load Balancer with listeners configured for both HTTP and HTTPS, and enable SSL/TLS termination.
- C
Use an Application Load Balancer with only an HTTP listener and configure the EC2 instances to handle HTTPS traffic.
- D
Use a Classic Load Balancer with both HTTP and HTTPS listeners for traffic distribution.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
An Application Load Balancer is the best choice for web applications requiring HTTP and HTTPS traffic distribution. It supports SSL/TLS termination, reducing the workload on backend EC2 instances, and provides features like path-based routing and host-based routing that are not available in Classic Load Balancers. Network Load Balancers are better suited for high-throughput, low-latency TCP/UDP traffic rather than HTTP-based applications.
- A. Correct.
This is the correct option. An Application Load Balancer supports HTTP and HTTPS protocols, can distribute traffic across multiple EC2 instances, and provides SSL/TLS termination to offload this task from backend servers.
- B. Incorrect.
A Network Load Balancer is designed for high-performance TCP/UDP traffic. While it can handle HTTPS traffic, it is not optimized for HTTP-based web applications and does not offer the advanced features of an Application Load Balancer, such as SSL/TLS termination.
- C. Incorrect.
This option does not meet the requirement to offload SSL/TLS termination. Configuring EC2 instances to handle HTTPS traffic contradicts the goal of reducing their workload.
- D. Incorrect.
The Classic Load Balancer is an older generation of load balancer that supports HTTP and HTTPS, but it lacks the advanced features of the Application Load Balancer, such as SSL/TLS termination and application-layer routing.