A company manages multiple AWS accounts through AWS Organizations. The finance team wants to receive a consolidated view of costs across all accounts and track costs against a monthly budget of $50,000 for the entire organization. They want to be alerted when actual costs reach 90% of the budget and again when they exceed 100%. Which combination of AWS services should the finance team use?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
Distractor review
AWS Cost Explorer to create a budget alert and AWS Budgets to view consolidated costs.
This option reverses the roles. AWS Cost Explorer is used for cost analysis and visualization, not for creating budget alerts. AWS Budgets is used to create budgets and configure alerts, not for viewing consolidated costs (though it can display cost data, Cost Explorer is the dedicated tool for consolidated views).
Best answer
AWS Budgets to create a budget and configure alerts, and AWS Cost Explorer to view consolidated cost data.
Correct. AWS Budgets allows you to set a monthly budget and configure alerts at specified threshold percentages (e.g., 90% and 100%). AWS Cost Explorer provides a consolidated view of costs across multiple accounts in an organization, enabling the finance team to track spending against the budget.
Distractor review
AWS Trusted Advisor to set a cost optimization budget and AWS Cost Explorer to send alerts.
AWS Trusted Advisor provides cost optimization recommendations and checks, but it does not support setting budgets or sending budget alerts. AWS Cost Explorer does not send alerts; it is an analytics tool.
Distractor review
AWS Cost and Usage Report to generate a daily report and Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) to send email alerts.
The AWS Cost and Usage Report provides detailed cost data but does not natively handle budget alerts. While Amazon SES could be used to send custom notifications, this approach requires building a custom solution rather than using the native AWS Budgets service, which is designed for this exact use case.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
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More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A developer needs to launch a test server for a new application prototype. The developer logs into the AWS Management Console, selects an Amazon EC2 instance type, configures the security group, and starts the instance. The instance is running within two minutes, and the developer did not need to submit a formal request to the company's IT procurement team or wait for approval from a cloud administrator. Which essential characteristic of cloud computing does this scenario best demonstrate?
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?
Question 3
A company's development team frequently needs temporary test environments. A developer can log into the AWS Management Console, select an Amazon EC2 instance type, configure storage, and launch the instance within minutes without any interaction with the IT infrastructure team. This capability is an example of which essential characteristic of cloud computing?
Question 4
A company's finance team needs to analyze AWS spending in detail. They require a report that includes hourly cost data for each AWS service, each individual resource (e.g., a specific EC2 instance), and any cost allocation tags applied. The team plans to export this data to an Amazon S3 bucket and then import it into a custom business intelligence (BI) analytics dashboard. Which AWS tool should the finance team use to generate this level of detailed cost data?
Question 5
A company uses AWS for its development environment. The finance team wants to set a monthly budget of $10,000. They want to receive an email notification when the actual costs reach 80% of the budget ($8,000) and again when costs exceed the budget. The team needs a managed AWS service that can automatically send these alerts without requiring custom code or third-party tools. Which AWS service should the team use?
Question 6
A company uses AWS Organizations to manage multiple accounts. The security team needs to enforce a policy that restricts SSH access (port 22) from the internet (0.0.0.0/0) in all VPCs across all accounts. The team wants to centrally define the allowed rules and automatically apply them to newly created VPCs and security groups, while also automatically remediating any existing non-compliant security groups. Which AWS service should the team use?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this CLF-C02 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: AWS Budgets to create a budget and configure alerts, and AWS Cost Explorer to view consolidated cost data. — AWS Budgets is used to set cost budgets and configure alerts (including threshold alerts at 90% and 100%). AWS Cost Explorer provides a consolidated view of costs across all accounts when used with AWS Organizations, allowing the finance team to monitor spending against the budget. The other options either swap the roles of the services or use services not designed for budget alerts.
What should I do if I get this CLF-C02 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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