Which AWS Services Are Serverless? Choose Two
Which AWS services are serverless? (Choose two.)
Community Votes
100% of anonymous learners picked answer AD. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.
Community Insight
The question tests whether you can distinguish truly serverless services (no server management at all) from merely 'managed' services that still place cluster, node, or instance management on the customer.
Serverless services eliminate server provisioning, patching, and capacity management, letting AWS handle the underlying infrastructure. This question establishes that AWS Fargate and Amazon S3 are the two serverless choices, while EC2, EMR, and standard MSK require you to manage compute capacity or cluster infrastructure.
Learners often pick Amazon EMR or Amazon MSK because they are 'managed' services — but managed still means you size, scale, and maintain cluster nodes, whereas serverless means there is no infrastructure for you to manage.
Community Discussion (3 comments)
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Expert Analysis
Why the Answer Is Correct
AWS Fargate is a serverless compute engine for containers: you run ECS or EKS tasks without provisioning, patching, or scaling EC2 instances, and you pay only for the task resources actually consumed. Amazon S3 is the archetype of a serverless storage service — you simply create buckets and store objects with effectively unlimited capacity, and AWS handles all hardware, durability, and availability underneath. Both services require zero server administration from the customer, which is the defining trait of serverless per AWS's own definition. Together they satisfy the "choose two" requirement.Why the Other Options Are Wrong
Amazon EC2 is the opposite of serverless: you explicitly launch, resize, patch, and terminate virtual servers, and you are responsible for the guest OS and scaling. Amazon EMR is a managed big-data platform, but you must still choose and manage the cluster's EC2 instances (or their provisioning model), configure nodes, and handle scaling decisions. Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka is a managed service, but the standard offering requires you to specify broker and storage capacity and manage cluster sizing; its serverless variant is a separate, distinct offering and is not what the option names. "Managed" and "serverless" are not synonyms — managed means AWS operates it, serverless means you have no infrastructure to manage at all.Community Comment Notes
Community input converges on the same pair, with ShaiTay stating "A& D. Fargate and S3 are serverless." One comment explains that S3 "forms a functional base for all serverless solutions without having to configure any OS or management of any underlying infrastructure." No dissenting votes appear in the distribution, which matches the AWS service definitions rather than merely following the crowd.Official Reference
Exam Strategy
On the CLF-C02, treat 'serverless' as 'no servers or clusters for you to size, patch, or scale' and 'managed' as 'AWS operates it, but you still manage capacity or nodes.' Eliminate any option where you must choose instance types, node counts, or cluster sizing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Amazon MSK not considered serverless in this question?
Standard Amazon MSK requires you to choose broker count and instance/storage capacity and manage cluster scaling, so it is managed but not serverless. Amazon MSK Serverless is a separate offering not named by the option.
Is Amazon EMR serverless because AWS hosts the cluster?
No. With EMR you still provision and scale the underlying cluster nodes and manage their configuration. AWS operates the service, but you retain infrastructure-management responsibility.
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