mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped

A company runs a development environment composed of multiple Amazon EC2 instances. The finance team has set a monthly budget of $5,000 for this environment and wants to automatically stop all EC2 instances if the accumulated cost reaches $4,500 before the end of the month. The team needs a managed AWS-native solution that does not require custom scripts or third-party tools. Which AWS feature or service should the company use to meet this requirement?

Question 1mediummultiple choice
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A company runs a development environment composed of multiple Amazon EC2 instances. The finance team has set a monthly budget of $5,000 for this environment and wants to automatically stop all EC2 instances if the accumulated cost reaches $4,500 before the end of the month. The team needs a managed AWS-native solution that does not require custom scripts or third-party tools. Which AWS feature or service should the company use to meet this requirement?

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 Budgets with a budget action that stops EC2 instances when the threshold is exceeded

AWS Budgets supports budget actions that can automate responses to cost or usage threshold breaches. You can configure an action to stop Amazon EC2 instances, which directly satisfies the requirement without custom scripts.

B

Distractor review

AWS Cost Explorer with a saved filter and manual instance termination

AWS Cost Explorer is a cost visualization and analysis tool. It cannot automatically stop instances; it only provides data for manual review. This does not meet the automation requirement.

C

Distractor review

AWS Trusted Advisor cost optimization checks

AWS Trusted Advisor provides recommendations to reduce costs, such as identifying idle instances, but it does not execute automated actions like stopping instances. It only advises, not enforces.

D

Distractor review

AWS Organizations Service Control Policies (SCPs)

Service Control Policies centrally control permissions for accounts in an organization. They can deny actions like launching EC2 instances but cannot automate stopping running instances based on cost thresholds. They are not designed for cost-based resource management.

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 Budgets with a budget action that stops EC2 instances when the threshold is exceeded — AWS Budgets allows you to set cost budgets and create actions that are triggered when a budget threshold is exceeded. In this scenario, the finance team can configure a budget action that stops EC2 instances automatically when the actual cost reaches $4,500. Other options like Cost Explorer are for visualization, Trusted Advisor provides recommendations but does not automate actions, and Service Control Policies are for governing permissions across accounts, not for stopping resources based on cost.

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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