CLF-C02 Billing, Pricing, and Support Practice Test 4 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company has multiple AWS accounts that are consolidated under AWS Organizations. The company uses cost allocation tags to track costs by project. The finance team now wants an interactive tool that can visualize the company's AWS spending over the past 6 months, break down costs by the 'Project' tag, and allow filtering by service, region, and linked account. The team also wants to forecast future spending based on historical trends. Which AWS service or feature should the finance team use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Cost Explorer. AWS Cost Explorer is the correct choice because it provides an interactive, pre-built dashboard that visualizes cost and usage data over customizable time periods (up to 12 months), supports filtering by service, region, and linked account, and includes a forecasting feature that uses machine learning to predict future spending based on historical trends. It directly meets the finance team's requirement for an interactive tool with filtering and forecasting capabilities.

Answer

AWS Budgets

Answer

AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR)

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 2

A solutions architect is planning a new web application on AWS. The workload will include 3 Amazon EC2 instances (t3.medium) running 24/7, an Application Load Balancer, and an Amazon RDS for MySQL db.t3.small database. The architect needs to estimate the monthly cost for the first year, considering different purchasing options (On-Demand, 1-year All Upfront Reserved Instance, and Compute Savings Plan). Which AWS tool should the architect use to create this estimate?

Accepted Answer

AWS Pricing Calculator. The AWS Pricing Calculator (formerly Simple Monthly Calculator) is the correct tool for estimating monthly costs for specific AWS resources like EC2 instances, ALB, and RDS under different purchasing options (On-Demand, Reserved Instances, Savings Plans). It allows you to input exact instance types, quantities, and commitment terms to generate a detailed cost estimate for the first year.

Answer

AWS Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator

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AWS Cost Explorer

Answer

AWS Budgets

Question 3

A company runs several Amazon EC2 instances for development and testing purposes. The finance team wants to identify any instances that have been running with very low CPU utilization (less than 10%) over the past two weeks so they can stop or resize them to reduce costs. Which AWS tool provides this specific recommendation as part of its cost optimization checks?

Accepted Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor. AWS Trusted Advisor provides cost optimization checks that include identifying Amazon EC2 instances with low utilization. Specifically, the 'Low Utilization Amazon EC2 Instances' check flags instances that have had a CPU utilization of 10% or less for the past 14 days, enabling the finance team to stop or resize them to reduce costs.

Answer

AWS Compute Optimizer

Answer

AWS Cost Explorer

Answer

AWS Budgets

Question 4

A company uses AWS Organizations to manage multiple accounts. The finance team needs to perform a detailed cost analysis by joining AWS usage data with their internal accounting system. They require hourly-level billing data that includes resource IDs, operation types, and cost allocation tags. The data must be available in a CSV file that can be imported into their financial software. Which AWS tool or service should the finance team use to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

AWS Cost and Usage Report. The AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) is the correct choice because it provides the most granular billing data available, including hourly-level usage, resource IDs, operation types, and cost allocation tags. The report can be delivered to an Amazon S3 bucket in CSV format, making it directly importable into the finance team's financial software for detailed cost analysis.

Answer

AWS Cost Explorer

Answer

AWS Budgets

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 5

A company runs a mix of production and non-production Amazon EC2 instances. The finance team uses AWS Budgets to monitor monthly spending. For the development accounts, the team wants to automatically stop all running EC2 instances when the account's monthly spending reaches 90% of the budgeted amount. The team wants a solution that does not require custom scripting or additional infrastructure. Which AWS Budgets feature should the team configure to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Configure a budget action that runs an AWS Systems Manager automation document to stop the EC2 instances.. AWS Budgets supports budget actions that can automatically trigger AWS Systems Manager automation documents to stop EC2 instances when a budget threshold is exceeded. This meets the requirement of no custom scripting or additional infrastructure, as the automation document is a built-in capability of Systems Manager.

Answer

Create a budget alert that sends an email notification to the operations team when spending reaches 90% of the budget.

Answer

Configure a budget action that applies an IAM policy to deny the ec2:StopInstances permission for all users.

Answer

Create a budget alert that publishes a message to an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic, and subscribe an AWS Lambda function to stop the instances.

Question 6

A company runs a diverse workload on AWS that includes Amazon EC2 instances of various families and sizes across multiple regions, Amazon RDS databases, and a serverless application using AWS Lambda and AWS Fargate. The finance team wants to reduce compute costs by making a 1-year hourly spend commitment, but they need the flexibility to change instance families, sizes, regions, or switch between EC2, Fargate, and Lambda without losing the discount. Which AWS pricing model should the finance team choose to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Compute Savings Plan. A Compute Savings Plan is the correct choice because it offers a 1-year hourly spend commitment with the flexibility to change instance families, sizes, regions, and even switch between EC2, Fargate, and Lambda while still receiving the discount. This plan applies to any compute usage across these services, automatically adjusting the discount to the most cost-effective instance type or compute option, meeting the finance team's need for both cost reduction and operational flexibility.

Answer

Reserved Instances (Standard)

Answer

Reserved Instances (Convertible)

Answer

On-Demand

Question 7

A company runs a mix of Amazon EC2 instances across multiple AWS Regions to support its e-commerce platform. The finance team wants to reduce compute costs by right-sizing resources. They need a managed tool that analyzes historical CPU and memory utilization over 30 days, uses machine learning to identify over-provisioned and under-provisioned instances, and provides actionable recommendations to adjust instance sizes. Which AWS tool should the finance team use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Compute Optimizer. AWS Compute Optimizer is the correct choice because it is a managed service that uses machine learning to analyze historical utilization metrics (CPU, memory, etc.) over up to 93 days, identifies over-provisioned and under-provisioned EC2 instances, and generates actionable rightsizing recommendations. The question specifically requires a tool that analyzes 30 days of historical CPU and memory data with ML-driven insights, which aligns exactly with Compute Optimizer's core functionality.

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Answer

AWS Cost Explorer

Answer

AWS Budgets

Question 8

A company spends over $75,000 per month on AWS services and needs ongoing, proactive cost optimization guidance from a designated AWS expert. The company also requires a 15-minute response time for their most critical production incidents. Which AWS Support plan should the company choose?

Accepted Answer

AWS Enterprise Support. AWS Enterprise Support is the correct choice because it provides a designated Technical Account Manager (TAM) for proactive cost optimization guidance and a 15-minute response time for critical production incidents. The company's monthly spend of over $75,000 and need for ongoing, expert-led cost optimization align with the Enterprise-level support features, which include a TAM who conducts regular business reviews and cost optimization workshops.

Answer

AWS Basic Support

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AWS Developer Support

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AWS Business Support

Question 9

A company has an AWS Basic Support plan. The operations team wants to use AWS Trusted Advisor to receive recommendations for cost optimization, such as identifying idle load balancers and underutilized Amazon EC2 instances. They log into the AWS Management Console and navigate to Trusted Advisor, but they only see a limited set of checks, such as S3 bucket permissions and service limits. Which action should the team take to access the complete library of Trusted Advisor checks, including the cost optimization recommendations?

Accepted Answer

Upgrade to a Business or Enterprise Support plan.. AWS Trusted Advisor provides a full set of checks, including cost optimization recommendations (e.g., idle load balancers, underutilized EC2 instances), only to customers with a Business or Enterprise Support plan. The Basic Support plan restricts Trusted Advisor to a limited subset of checks, such as S3 bucket permissions and service limits. Therefore, upgrading to a Business or Enterprise Support plan is required to access the complete library of checks.

Answer

Enable AWS Config to perform the cost optimization and underutilization checks.

Answer

Upgrade to a Developer Support plan.

Answer

No action is needed; the full set of Trusted Advisor checks is already available for all AWS Support plans.

Question 10

A company uses AWS Organizations with multiple accounts for different departments. The finance team applies tags to resources to track costs by department (e.g., Marketing, Engineering) and environment (e.g., Production, Development). However, many resources lack the required tags. The team needs a tool that can automatically allocate costs for untagged resources to specific departments and environments based on rules, and then generate reports that show cost breakdowns by these custom dimensions. The solution must not require custom scripts or manual allocation. Which AWS feature should the finance team use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Cost Categories. AWS Cost Categories is the correct choice because it allows you to automatically allocate costs for untagged or mis-tagged resources to specific departments and environments based on customizable rules (e.g., using resource tags, account IDs, or even chargeback rules). It then generates detailed cost breakdown reports by these custom dimensions without requiring any custom scripts or manual allocation, directly addressing the need for automated cost allocation and reporting.

Answer

AWS Budgets

Answer

AWS Cost Explorer

Answer

AWS Resource Groups

Question 11

A company runs non-production Amazon EC2 instances for development and testing. The finance team wants to automatically stop all non-production instances if the monthly spending exceeds $5,000. The team wants to set this up without writing custom scripts or using third-party tools. Which AWS feature should the finance team use to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

AWS Budgets with a budget action to stop EC2 instances. AWS Budgets allows you to set a cost budget (e.g., $5,000) and attach a budget action that triggers an AWS Systems Manager (SSM) automation document to stop EC2 instances when the actual or forecasted spend exceeds the threshold. This meets the requirement without custom scripts or third-party tools, as the budget action natively integrates with EC2 via SSM.

Answer

AWS Cost Explorer

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Answer

AWS Config

Question 12

A company manages multiple AWS accounts under a single AWS Organizations structure with consolidated billing. The finance team needs to analyze historical cost and usage data across all accounts for the past six months. They want to filter the data by service (e.g., Amazon EC2, Amazon S3), AWS Region, and individual account. Additionally, they want to generate a line chart showing monthly trends and a forecast of future costs based on historical usage patterns. Which AWS tool should the finance team use to meet all of these requirements?

Accepted Answer

AWS Cost Explorer. AWS Cost Explorer is the correct tool because it provides a pre-built dashboard with historical cost and usage data for up to the last 12 months, supports filtering by service (e.g., Amazon EC2, Amazon S3), AWS Region, and linked account (individual account), and can generate line charts showing monthly trends. It also includes a forecasting feature that uses machine learning to predict future costs based on historical usage patterns, meeting all the finance team's requirements.

Answer

AWS Budgets

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Answer

AWS Pricing Calculator

Question 13

A startup is designing a new application on AWS. They have selected specific Amazon EC2 instance types, Amazon EBS volumes, and estimated data transfer. The team wants to compare the monthly cost of running the application using On-Demand instances versus 1-year All Upfront Reserved Instances before they commit to any resources. Which AWS tool should they use to generate this cost estimate?

Accepted Answer

AWS Pricing Calculator. AWS Pricing Calculator (option C) is the correct tool because it allows users to estimate the monthly cost of AWS services, including EC2 instances, EBS volumes, and data transfer, before deployment. It supports comparing pricing models such as On-Demand and 1-year All Upfront Reserved Instances by letting you input specific instance types, storage, and transfer details to generate a detailed cost breakdown. This matches the startup's need to compare costs without committing to resources.

Answer

AWS Cost Explorer

Answer

AWS Budgets

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 14

A company is migrating a critical database to Amazon RDS. The database must run continuously for the next 3 years to support the company's operations. The finance team wants to minimize compute costs for this database. However, they have a limited budget and cannot make large upfront payments. They want to commit to a 3-year term to receive the highest possible discount without paying anything upfront. Which pricing option should the finance team select for the DB instance?

Accepted Answer

3-Year No Upfront Reserved DB instances. The finance team wants to commit to a 3-year term to receive the highest possible discount without paying anything upfront. AWS Reserved Instances offer three payment options: All Upfront, Partial Upfront, and No Upfront. The No Upfront option provides a significant discount over On-Demand pricing (typically around 40-60% for a 3-year term) while requiring no upfront payment, making it the most cost-effective choice given the budget constraint. Option D (3-Year No Upfront Reserved DB instances) satisfies both the requirement for a 3-year commitment and the inability to make large upfront payments.

Answer

On-Demand DB instances

Answer

1-Year All Upfront Reserved DB instances

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3-Year Partial Upfront Reserved DB instances

Question 15

A company uses a variety of AWS services and wants to automatically detect unexpected cost spikes that might indicate resource misuse, billing errors, or unauthorized activity. The company needs a managed service that uses machine learning to analyze spending patterns and provide alerts when costs deviate from expected trends. The finance team does not want to manually define thresholds for every service. Which AWS service should the finance team use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Cost Anomaly Detection. AWS Cost Anomaly Detection is a managed service that uses machine learning to continuously monitor your cost and usage patterns, automatically detecting anomalous spending without requiring manual threshold definitions. It analyzes historical data to establish a baseline and alerts you when costs deviate from expected trends, making it ideal for identifying unexpected spikes from resource misuse, billing errors, or unauthorized activity.

Answer

AWS Budgets

Answer

AWS Cost Explorer

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor