The correct answer is: Deploy the application to AWS Elastic Beanstalk and use URL swapping between multiple environments to safely test new features.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a fully managed platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering that supports Java and PHP. It handles provisioning, load balancing, scaling, and monitoring with minimal configuration. Elastic Beanstalk environments support blue/green deployments and URL swapping, which allow developers to deploy new versions to a separate environment, validate the changes, and then promote them to production with zero downtime.

Why the other options are incorrect:

Using an Amazon S3 bucket with AWS Lambda is only appropriate for static websites or serverless use cases. This approach lacks support for full server-side web applications like those built with Java and PHP, and it would require rewriting core parts of the backend logic into Lambda functions.

Hosting the application on EC2 instances with Auto Scaling and an Application Load Balancer is functional but requires significantly more manual setup and ongoing maintenance. The company would have to manage instance patching, provisioning, and application deployments themselves, which contradicts the requirement for minimal operational overhead.

Containerizing the application and deploying to EC2 instances with AWS Load Balancer Controller introduces unnecessary complexity. This setup assumes Kubernetes or custom container orchestration without using managed services like ECS or EKS. It requires the company to manage the container lifecycle and traffic routing logic manually, which increases the operational burden.

Why this question matters: It tests your knowledge of when to use Elastic Beanstalk over raw EC2 or container-based deployments. The question also evaluates your understanding of safe deployment strategies like blue/green or canary testing, and how AWS services enable rapid iteration with minimal infrastructure effort.

Tip: When you see requirements that include 'managed solution', 'frequent testing', and 'Java/PHP', Elastic Beanstalk should be top of mind. If the question mentions needing dynamic content support and full web application frameworks, be cautious about choosing static hosting or Lambda-based solutions.

Full AWS Practitioner Certification Question