A company manages multiple AWS accounts using AWS Organizations. The company wants employees to sign in using their existing corporate credentials from an on-premises Microsoft Active Directory. The company also needs a single sign-on (SSO) experience so that each employee can access the AWS Management Console for any authorized account without needing separate passwords. Additionally, the company wants to centrally manage permissions across all accounts. Which AWS service should the company use to meet these requirements?
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 Identity and Access Management (IAM)
IAM manages users and permissions within a single AWS account. It cannot centrally manage permissions across multiple accounts or provide single sign-on using corporate credentials across accounts without additional configuration like role switching, which is not the centralized SSO solution described.
Best answer
AWS IAM Identity Center (AWS SSO)
AWS IAM Identity Center is the service that centrally manages single sign-on access to multiple AWS accounts and applications. It integrates with Microsoft Active Directory and allows employees to use their existing corporate credentials to access the AWS Management Console across all authorized accounts with a single sign-on experience, and it centralizes permission management.
Distractor review
AWS Directory Service
AWS Directory Service provides managed Microsoft Active Directory in the AWS cloud. While it can be used as a source of user identities, it does not natively provide the cross-account SSO and permission management features of IAM Identity Center. It would be a component of the solution but not the service that delivers the SSO experience across multiple accounts.
Distractor review
Amazon Cognito
Amazon Cognito is designed for customer identity and access management (CIAM) for web and mobile applications, such as sign-up and sign-in for end users. It is not intended for employee access to AWS accounts or for managing permissions across multiple AWS accounts.
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 IAM Identity Center (AWS SSO) — AWS IAM Identity Center (successor to AWS SSO) is the service designed to centrally manage single sign-on access to multiple AWS accounts and business applications. It integrates with Microsoft Active Directory (via AWS Directory Service or an external identity provider) to allow users to sign in with their existing corporate credentials and provides a single sign-on experience across accounts. AWS IAM is account-specific and cannot centrally manage permissions across multiple accounts. AWS Directory Service provides managed Active Directory but does not natively offer the SSO and cross-account permission management that IAM Identity Center provides. Amazon Cognito is for customer identity and access management for web and mobile applications, not for employee access to AWS accounts.
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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