SAA-C03 Practice Test 44 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company has three workloads. First, a stable EC2 application will remain on the same instance family for at least one year. Second, an ECS service on Fargate may shift between launch types but has steady baseline usage. Third, a fault-tolerant nightly batch job can be interrupted and restarted. Which three pricing choices should the architect recommend? Select three.

Accepted Answer

Standard Reserved Instances for the EC2 application.. Standard Reserved Instances (A) are ideal for the stable EC2 application because the workload has a predictable, steady-state usage and will remain on the same instance family for at least one year. By committing to a 1-year or 3-year term, the company receives a significant discount (up to 72%) compared to On-Demand pricing, making it the most cost-effective choice for this stable, long-running workload.

Answer

On-Demand Instances for all three workloads.

Answer

Dedicated Hosts for the batch job.

Question 2

A company runs a customer portal in us-east-1 and a warm standby in us-west-2. The DNS name must send users to us-east-1 while it is healthy and automatically switch to us-west-2 if the primary application endpoint stops responding. Which two actions should the architect take? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Create Route 53 failover records for the same DNS name with primary and secondary targets.. Option A is correct because Route 53 failover routing allows you to configure active-passive failover by associating a primary and secondary record with the same DNS name. When the primary endpoint fails, Route 53 automatically returns the secondary record's IP address, directing traffic to the warm standby in us-west-2. This directly meets the requirement for automatic failover based on endpoint health.

Answer

Use latency-based routing so Route 53 always returns the lowest-latency Region.

Answer

Use weighted records with a 50/50 split to balance traffic across both Regions.

Answer

Place the standby application in a private hosted zone so only internal systems can resolve it.

Question 3

A company is encrypting sensitive S3 data for a healthcare document service with AWS KMS. Which two controls help prevent accidental use of the KMS key by unauthorized principals?

Accepted Answer

A key policy that limits key administrators and key users. Option B is correct because a key policy in AWS KMS explicitly defines which principals (users, roles, or AWS services) are allowed to use the key for cryptographic operations. By restricting key usage to specific key users, you prevent unauthorized principals—even those with broad IAM permissions—from accidentally invoking the key. This is a critical control for sensitive data like healthcare documents, where compliance requires strict access boundaries.

Answer

S3 Transfer Acceleration

Answer

A larger KMS key rotation period

Question 4

A company processes product-image uploads in bursts. Each transform takes up to ten minutes, and every job can be retried safely from the beginning. The current EC2 worker fleet is idle most of the day. Which two changes most reduce cost and idle capacity? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Buffer jobs in Amazon SQS and let workers scale from queue depth.. Option A is correct because Amazon SQS decouples the bursty upload workload from the worker fleet. By using SQS queue depth as the metric for an Auto Scaling policy, workers scale up only when jobs are waiting and scale down to zero during idle periods, eliminating wasted capacity. This directly reduces cost by matching compute resources to actual demand.

Answer

Keep a fixed fleet of m6i.large instances in an Auto Scaling group with a higher minimum.

Answer

Use Reserved Instances for the workers even though demand is highly bursty.

Answer

Process uploads only during a nightly window so the fleet looks busier.

Question 5

A company hosts application servers in private subnets. They must access Amazon S3 and read secrets from AWS Secrets Manager, but they want to avoid internet egress. They currently use a NAT gateway and see high NAT-related costs. What change most directly reduces cost while keeping traffic on the AWS network?

Accepted Answer

Create a Gateway VPC endpoint for S3 and an Interface VPC endpoint for Secrets Manager, then route requests via those endpoints instead of NAT. Option B is correct because it replaces the NAT gateway with VPC endpoints, which are free of data processing charges and keep all traffic within the AWS network. A Gateway VPC endpoint for S3 uses prefix lists and route table entries to send S3 traffic directly over the AWS backbone, while an Interface VPC endpoint for Secrets Manager uses AWS PrivateLink to provide private connectivity without internet egress. This eliminates NAT gateway hourly and data processing costs, directly addressing the cost concern.

Answer

Keep the NAT gateway and reduce instance size to lower NAT throughput charges

Answer

Switch Secrets Manager to use S3 as a storage backend so both services can use the S3 endpoint only

Answer

Move the private subnets to public subnets and attach an Internet Gateway to eliminate NAT

Question 6

A company has an Amazon S3 bucket for sensitive reports. They must ensure that any object uploaded with s3:PutObject is encrypted using AWS KMS (SSE-KMS). Which S3 bucket policy approach best enforces this by denying uploads that do not use SSE-KMS?

Accepted Answer

Use a Deny statement for s3:PutObject with a condition that denies requests where s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption is not "aws:kms" (SSE-KMS), for example: Condition { StringNotEquals: { "s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption": "aws:kms" } }. Option A is correct because it uses a Deny statement with the condition `StringNotEquals` on the `s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption` request header, which explicitly denies any `s3:PutObject` request that does not include the value `aws:kms` for that header. This ensures that only objects encrypted with SSE-KMS are uploaded, as any request lacking the header or using a different encryption type (e.g., AES256) will be denied. The condition is evaluated at the time of the request, making it an effective enforcement mechanism.

Answer

Use a Deny statement that denies requests when aws:SecureTransport is false.

Answer

Use a Deny statement that checks the specific KMS key ID (s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption-aws-kms-key-id) and denies requests that don’t match a single alias value.

Answer

Use a Deny or Allow statement that limits object keys using s3:prefix (for example, only allow keys under "reports/").

Question 7

You deploy a Web ACL with an AWS WAF rate-based rule intended to limit abusive traffic to your API. After the deployment, attackers still reach the backend service. ALB access logs show requests arrive at the ALB, but WAF logs indicate the Web ACL is not evaluating those requests.

Which change most likely fixes the issue?

Accepted Answer

Associate the Web ACL with the Application Load Balancer resource ARN so WAF evaluates requests sent to that ALB.. A Web ACL must be explicitly associated with a resource (such as an ALB) for AWS WAF to evaluate incoming requests. In this scenario, the Web ACL was deployed but not associated with the ALB resource ARN, so WAF never inspected the traffic. Associating the Web ACL with the ALB ensures that all requests to the ALB are evaluated by the rate-based rule before reaching the backend.

Answer

Add a security group rule that drops inbound traffic from the attacker IP range at the instances' ENIs.

Answer

Create a target group stickiness policy so WAF can count requests consistently per client IP.

Answer

Enable AWS Shield Advanced but keep the Web ACL unattached because Shield automatically applies rate limiting.

Question 8

A company hosts a financial reporting platform on EC2. Administrators must connect without opening SSH or RDP ports to the internet. What should the architect use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager Session Manager with the required instance role. AWS Systems Manager Session Manager allows secure shell access to EC2 instances without opening inbound ports (SSH 22 or RDP 3389) to the internet. It uses the AWS Systems Manager agent on the instance, combined with an IAM instance role that grants permissions to communicate with the Systems Manager API, establishing a bidirectional tunnel over HTTPS (port 443). This satisfies the requirement of no public-facing SSH or RDP ports while enabling administrative connectivity.

Answer

A public Elastic IP address on each instance

Answer

A bastion host with SSH open to 0.0.0.0/0

Answer

An internet gateway attached to the private subnet

Question 9

A company uses IAM permission boundaries to prevent developers from escalating privileges. The security team created a permission boundary that allows only read-only actions on most AWS services, but teams can still manage their own resources. A developer can create an IAM role with broad permissions, and the boundary does not appear to be restricting it. Which corrective action best aligns with how permission boundaries work?

Accepted Answer

Ensure the role creation process sets the permission boundary on the new role, using the boundary’s ARN in the CreateRole call or role template.. Permission boundaries must be explicitly applied to a role during its creation (via the `CreateRole` API call or an infrastructure-as-code template). Without setting the boundary ARN, the role inherits no restriction, allowing the developer to create a role with broad permissions that bypasses the intended boundary. Option B correctly identifies that the role creation process must include the boundary ARN to enforce the limitation.

Answer

Rely on an AWS-managed policy attached to the developer’s IAM user; permission boundaries only apply to users.

Answer

Attach the permission boundary policy as an SCP in AWS Organizations so it automatically applies to all roles.

Answer

Grant the developer IAM permissions to add a “deny” statement to the boundary policy so the boundary blocks escalation.

Question 10

Based on the exhibit, an automation pipeline in several member accounts creates IAM roles for application deployments. Security says no future role may exceed the approved boundary arn:aws:iam::123456789012:policy/DeployBoundary, even if someone later attaches AdministratorAccess. What should you implement to enforce this across the organization?

Accepted Answer

Create an SCP that denies iam:CreateRole unless iam:PermissionsBoundary equals arn:aws:iam::123456789012:policy/DeployBoundary, and also deny removing that boundary from created roles.. Option C is correct because it uses an SCP to enforce that any IAM role creation must include the specific permissions boundary `arn:aws:iam::123456789012:policy/DeployBoundary`, and also prevents removal or modification of that boundary from existing roles. This ensures that even if an attacker or administrator later attaches a policy like AdministratorAccess, the effective permissions are still limited by the boundary, meeting the security requirement across all member accounts in the organization.

Answer

Attach DeployBoundary to the automation role only, because that automatically forces every created role to inherit the same boundary.

Answer

Create an SCP that denies iam:CreateRole and iam:PutRolePermissionsBoundary unless aws:RequestTag equals DeployBoundary.

Answer

Use AWS Access Analyzer to automatically attach the approved boundary whenever a role is created without one.

Question 11

Based on the exhibit, a company stores sensitive PDFs in S3 and serves them through CloudFront. Direct requests to the S3 object URL must fail, but CloudFront should still be able to fetch the files securely. Which solution best satisfies the requirement?

Accepted Answer

Configure CloudFront Origin Access Control for the S3 origin and update the bucket policy to allow only that distribution.. Option C is correct because CloudFront Origin Access Control (OAC) allows CloudFront to authenticate requests to an S3 origin using a specific identity, and the bucket policy can be configured to grant access only to that CloudFront distribution. This ensures that direct S3 object URL requests fail (since they lack the CloudFront signature), while CloudFront can still fetch the files securely using the OAC mechanism.

Answer

Leave the bucket public but require CloudFront signed cookies for all users.

Answer

Use an S3 access point and give it a public policy so CloudFront can reach the objects.

Answer

Use S3 object ACLs to grant read access only to users behind CloudFront.

Question 12

An engineering team deploys a stateless web API on EC2 using an Auto Scaling group and an Application Load Balancer (ALB). During a recent test, they noticed that when one Availability Zone was unavailable, traffic failed until new instances were manually launched. Which change most directly improves automatic failover for the compute layer within a single Region?

Accepted Answer

Ensure the ALB and Auto Scaling group span multiple subnets in at least two Availability Zones.. Option B is correct because an Application Load Balancer (ALB) and Auto Scaling group must span multiple subnets in at least two Availability Zones (AZs) to provide automatic failover. When one AZ becomes unavailable, the ALB automatically reroutes traffic to healthy targets in the remaining AZs, and the Auto Scaling group can launch replacement instances in the surviving AZs. This architecture ensures that the compute layer remains available without manual intervention.

Answer

Place the Auto Scaling group in only one subnet so instance launches are simpler.

Answer

Increase the target group deregistration delay to allow old instances to stay longer.

Answer

Use a Network Load Balancer, but keep all subnets in a single Availability Zone.

Question 13

A company is encrypting sensitive S3 data for a IoT ingestion API with AWS KMS. Which two controls help prevent accidental use of the KMS key by unauthorized principals?

Accepted Answer

IAM policies that grant kms:Decrypt only to required application roles. IAM policies that grant kms:Decrypt only to required application roles ensure that only authorized principals can decrypt data encrypted with the KMS key. By explicitly allowing only the Decrypt action and restricting it to specific roles, you prevent unauthorized principals from accidentally using the key for decryption or other operations, even if they have access to the encrypted S3 objects.

Answer

S3 Transfer Acceleration

Answer

A larger KMS key rotation period

Question 14

A company stores application logs in an S3 bucket. They retain logs for 180 days. Compliance requires that the logs be immutable once written, but the business only reviews logs about once per month. Currently, the team stores everything in S3 Standard, and their monthly S3 bill is too high. They want to reduce storage cost without changing the requirement to keep logs for 180 days.

Which lifecycle approach best meets the goal?

Accepted Answer

Use a lifecycle policy to transition objects older than 30 days to S3 Standard-IA, and keep them there until day 180.. Option A is correct because it transitions logs to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days, which reduces storage costs while still meeting the 180-day retention requirement. S3 Standard-IA is designed for data accessed less frequently but requires rapid access when needed, aligning with the monthly review pattern. The lifecycle policy keeps objects in S3 Standard-IA until day 180, ensuring immutability (via S3 Object Lock or bucket policies) and compliance without premature deletion.

Answer

Use a lifecycle policy to transition objects older than 30 days to S3 Glacier Deep Archive and delete after 30 days.

Answer

Use a lifecycle policy to transition objects older than 30 days to S3 Intelligent-Tiering with no minimum storage duration.

Answer

Disable lifecycle management and instead lower costs by deleting objects immediately after they are written.

Question 15

A company hosts an internal API in two AWS Regions. Traffic must automatically switch to the secondary Region when the primary Region's endpoint is unhealthy. Which two Route 53 settings are required? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Use a failover routing policy for the DNS record.. A failover routing policy is required because it allows Route 53 to automatically route traffic from a primary resource to a secondary resource when the primary is unhealthy. This is the only routing policy that supports active-passive failover across two AWS Regions. Without this policy, Route 53 would not know which endpoint to consider primary or how to switch traffic upon failure.

Answer

Use geolocation routing so users are always sent to the closest Region.

Answer

Use a private hosted zone to expose the API to the internet.

Answer

Set the TTL to zero and skip health checks to make failover faster.