Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company runs a monthly data processing job that requires 100 Amazon EC2 instances to complete within 4 hours. The job is not needed at any other time. The company previously ran this job on its on-premises servers, which required maintaining enough capacity to handle the peak load year-round, leading to low average utilization. The company has now migrated the job to AWS. Each month, the company automatically provisions the 100 instances, runs the job, and then terminates the instances. Which essential characteristic of cloud computing does this scenario best illustrate?
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
Distractor review
Resource pooling
Resource pooling refers to the provider's computing resources being pooled to serve multiple customers using a multi-tenant model. This scenario focuses on scaling capacity up and down, not on multi-tenancy.
B
Distractor review
Measured service
Measured service means that cloud resource usage is metered and reported for billing and optimization. While AWS does meter usage, the core benefit shown here is the ability to scale quickly, not the metering itself.
C
Distractor review
On-demand self-service
On-demand self-service allows users to provision resources without human interaction. Although the company automates provisioning, the primary characteristic demonstrated is the rapid scaling up and down, which is elasticity. On-demand self-service is a supporting aspect but not the best fit for the scenario's emphasis on handling peak load efficiently.
D
Best answer
Rapid elasticity
Rapid elasticity is the ability to quickly and automatically scale resources up and down in response to demand. By provisioning 100 instances only when needed and terminating them after use, the company avoids over-provisioning and pays only for what it uses, directly illustrating this essential characteristic.
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: Rapid elasticity — This scenario best illustrates rapid elasticity, which is the ability to quickly scale resources up and down as needed. The company provisions a large number of instances for a short period and then releases them, demonstrating elastic scaling. This contrasts with the on-premises approach of over-provisioning for peak load. On-demand self-service (option C) is about provisioning resources without human interaction, but the key in this scenario is the scaling up and down, not just the self-service aspect. Resource pooling (A) refers to multi-tenant sharing of infrastructure. Measured service (B) refers to metering usage for billing and 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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