Provisioning an AWS Elastic Beanstalk Environment for a Production Web Application

Answer - B.

The Elastic Beanstalk console and EB CLI set configuration options when you create an environment.

You can also set configuration options in saved configurations and configuration files.

If the same option is set in multiple locations, the value used is determined by order of precedence.

Configuration option settings can be composed in text format and saved before environment creation, applied during environment creation using any supported client, and added, modified, or removed after environment creation.

During environment creation, configuration options are applied from multiple sources with the following precedence, from highest to lowest:

Settings applied directly to the environment - Settings specified during a create environment or update environment operation on the Elastic Beanstalk API by any client, including the AWS Management Console, EB CLI, AWS CLI, and SDKs.

The AWS Management Console and EB CLI also apply recommended values for some options that apply at this level unless overridden.

Saved Configurations - Settings for any options that are not applied directly to the environment are loaded from a saved configuration, if specified.

Configuration Files (.ebextensions) - Settings for any options that are not applied directly to the environment and not specified in a saved configuration are loaded from configuration files in the .ebextensions folder at the root of the application source bundle.

Configuration files are executed in alphabetical order.

For example, .ebextensions/01run.config is executed before .ebextensions/02do.config.

Default Values - If a configuration option has a default value, it only applies when the option is not set at any of the above levels.

If the same configuration option is defined in more than one location, the setting with the highest precedence is applied.

When a setting is applied from a saved configuration or settings applied directly to the environment, the setting is stored as part of the environment's configuration.

These settings can be removed with the AWS CLI or with the EB CLI.

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Settings in configuration files are not applied directly to the environment and cannot be removed without modifying the configuration files and deploying a new application version.

If a setting applied with one of the other methods is removed, the same setting will be loaded from configuration files in the source bundle.

Option A is incorrect since the Elastic Beanstalk service already manages the environment, and we don't need Cloudformation for this.

Option C is incorrect since the changes need to be done for the current configuration.

For more information on making this change, please refer to the below Link-

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/using-features.managing.ec2.html

The correct answer is B. Create a new configuration file with the instance type as m4.large and reference this file when provisioning the new environment.

Explanation:

Elastic Beanstalk is a service that allows developers to quickly deploy web applications in multiple languages, such as Java, Python, .NET, and more, on a scalable infrastructure without worrying about the underlying infrastructure management. Elastic Beanstalk provisions and manages the AWS resources that are needed to run the application, such as Amazon EC2 instances, load balancers, and auto-scaling groups. Elastic Beanstalk also handles the deployment, monitoring, and health management of the application.

In this scenario, the developer needs to provision a new production environment that can handle thousands of requests, which requires a larger instance type than the t1.micro instance used in the dev environment.

Option A is incorrect because CloudFormation is not needed to change the instance type of an Elastic Beanstalk environment. CloudFormation is a service that provides a way to model and provision AWS resources as code, using templates. While it's possible to use CloudFormation to provision an Elastic Beanstalk environment, it's not necessary in this scenario, and it would require additional setup.

Option C is incorrect because it's not recommended to use the dev environment as a production environment. The dev environment is typically used for testing and development purposes, and it's not designed to handle production traffic. Also, provisioning a new instance directly in the dev environment doesn't ensure that the production environment is set up correctly, and it can cause issues with the production environment's configuration.

Option D is incorrect because updating the auto-scaling group configuration directly using the AWS CLI is not recommended. Elastic Beanstalk provides a way to configure instances through configuration files, which is the recommended way of managing instances. Directly modifying the auto-scaling group can cause inconsistencies in the configuration and lead to issues with the environment.

Option B is the correct answer because Elastic Beanstalk allows developers to use configuration files to define the environment's configuration, including the instance type. By creating a new configuration file with the instance type as m4.large, the developer can reference this file when provisioning the new environment, which ensures that the new environment is provisioned with the correct instance type. The developer can create the new configuration file based on the existing configuration file used in the dev environment and modify the instance type value to m4.large.