mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped

A company runs 200 Amazon EC2 instances for its web application. The finance team wants to identify instances that are over-provisioned or underutilized to reduce costs. The team needs automated recommendations that consider the instance's CPU, memory, and network utilization patterns over the past 14 days. Which AWS service should the team use?

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A company runs 200 Amazon EC2 instances for its web application. The finance team wants to identify instances that are over-provisioned or underutilized to reduce costs. The team needs automated recommendations that consider the instance's CPU, memory, and network utilization patterns over the past 14 days. Which AWS service should the 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.

A

Best answer

AWS Compute Optimizer

This option is correct because AWS Compute Optimizer analyzes utilization patterns over a configurable lookback period (up to 93 days, default 14 days) and delivers actionable rightsizing recommendations to help reduce costs.

B

Distractor review

AWS Trusted Advisor

This option is incorrect. While AWS Trusted Advisor includes cost optimization checks (e.g., idle instances, underutilized EBS volumes), it does not provide the deep, ML-based rightsizing recommendations that consider 14 days of detailed utilization for each instance.

C

Distractor review

AWS Cost Explorer

This option is incorrect. AWS Cost Explorer provides cost and usage data visualization and forecasting, but it does not generate recommendations for rightsizing EC2 instances based on utilization patterns.

D

Distractor review

AWS Budgets

This option is incorrect. AWS Budgets allows you to set custom cost and usage budgets and receive alerts, but it does not provide rightsizing recommendations for EC2 instances.

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.

Related practice questions

Related CLF-C02 practice-question pages

Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.

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 Compute Optimizer — AWS Compute Optimizer uses machine learning to analyze historical utilization metrics (CPU, memory, network, and storage) and provides rightsizing recommendations to reduce costs. Trusted Advisor offers cost optimization checks but does not provide the same level of granularity or the 14-day pattern analysis. Cost Explorer helps visualize cost data but does not generate rightsizing recommendations. AWS Budgets is used to set cost thresholds and alerts, not for resource optimization.

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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