AWS DVA-C02 Drill: AWS CDK Deployment - Bootstrapping Cross-Account Lambda Assets

Jeff’s Note

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Unlike generic exam dumps, ADH analyzes this scenario through the lens of a Real-World Lead Developer.

For AWS DVA-C02 candidates, the confusion often lies in understanding the AWS CDK bootstrap process. In practice, deploying infrastructure that includes Lambda assets across multiple accounts requires specific environment preparation. Let’s drill down.

The Certification Drill (Simulated Question)

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Scenario

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A tech startup, StreamlineApps, is automating its deployment pipelines using AWS CDK to provision serverless application stacks. These stacks contain several AWS Lambda functions packaged as assets and defined using the AWS CDK Lambda construct library. The engineering team has successfully deployed to their initial testing environment (“dev-account”) using the cdk deploy command. Now, they are deploying the same stacks unchanged to a secondary testing environment (“qa-account”) in a separate AWS account. However, the deployment fails with a NoSuchBucket error on the first deployment attempt in the “qa-account.”

The Requirement:

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What command should the developer execute before redeploying to fix this error and enable asset deployment in the new account?

The Options

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• A) cdk synth
• B) cdk bootstrap
• C) cdk init
• D) cdk destroy

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leave a comment:

Correct Answer

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B) cdk bootstrap

Quick Insight: The Developer Imperative

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AWS CDK requires that target environments (accounts/regions) be bootstrapped once to provision supporting resources like an S3 bucket for storing deployed assets. Without bootstrapping the new account, Lambda asset uploads fail with NoSuchBucket errors.

Content Locked: The Expert Analysis

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You’ve identified the answer. But do you know the implementation details that separate a Junior from a Senior?

The Expert’s Analysis

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Correct Answer

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Option B: cdk bootstrap

The Winning Logic

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The cdk bootstrap command is essential when deploying CDK apps into a new AWS environment (account and region combination). It provisions a CloudFormation stack called the “CDK toolkit stack” which includes an S3 bucket and IAM roles the CDK toolkit uses to stage assets, such as Lambda deployment packages and container images.

• When deploying to the first account/region, bootstrap has already been done, so cdk deploy succeeded.
• The second account is new and does not have the CDK toolkit stack set up yet, so the deployment fails due to the missing S3 bucket (NoSuchBucket error).
• Running cdk bootstrap in the second account creates the necessary bucket and roles that allow asset staging and Lambda deployment.

The Trap (Distractor Analysis):

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• Why not A) cdk synth?
  This command generates the CloudFormation templates locally but does not provision any infrastructure, including the toolkit stack or asset bucket. It won’t fix missing buckets in the target environment.

• Why not C) cdk init?
  cdk init creates a new CDK app project scaffold locally. It’s unrelated to environment setup and won’t address cross-account deployment issues.

• Why not D) cdk destroy?
  Destroying stacks removes resources and would make things worse instead of fixing missing prerequisites for deployment.

The Technical Blueprint

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# Bootstrapping the new environment for AWS CDK deployments:
cdk bootstrap aws://<ACCOUNT_ID>/<REGION>

The Comparative Analysis

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Real-World Application (Practitioner Insight)

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Exam Rule

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“For the exam, always run cdk bootstrap when deploying CDK apps to a new AWS account or region for the first time.”

Real World

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In actual CI/CD pipelines, you typically bootstrap new environments once, possibly automating this step with AWS CLI scripting or CDK pipelines. Forgetting this step leads to confusing NoSuchBucket errors that waste troubleshooting time.

(CTA) Stop Guessing, Start Mastering

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Disclaimer

This is a study note based on simulated scenarios for the DVA-C02 exam.