- A
AWS Trusted Advisor
Why wrong: AWS Trusted Advisor provides best-practice checks including cost optimization, but its checks for underutilized instances are based on simple thresholds, not machine learning. It does not provide per-instance right-sizing recommendations with savings estimates.
- B
AWS Cost Explorer
Why wrong: AWS Cost Explorer provides cost and usage reports, as well as Reserved Instance and Savings Plan recommendations. It does not recommend downsizing existing On-Demand instances.
- C
AWS Compute Optimizer
Correct. AWS Compute Optimizer uses ML to analyze utilization patterns and recommends optimal instance types and sizes, including downsizing opportunities, along with estimated savings.
- D
AWS Budgets
Why wrong: AWS Budgets allows you to set cost or usage thresholds and receive alerts. It does not analyze resource utilization or provide right-sizing recommendations.
CLF-C02 Billing, Pricing, and Support Practice Question
This CLF-C02 practice question tests your understanding of billing, pricing, and support. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company runs a production web application on a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances. The operations team has observed that most instances have an average CPU utilization below 10% over the past month. They want to receive automated, ML-based recommendations for downsizing these instances to smaller instance types to reduce costs without compromising performance. The team also wants to see the estimated monthly savings for each recommendation. Which AWS service should the operations team use?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
AWS Compute Optimizer
AWS Compute Optimizer is the correct service because it uses machine learning to analyze historical utilization metrics (such as CPU, memory, and network) of EC2 instances and provides actionable recommendations to downsize or rightsize instances. It specifically generates estimated monthly savings for each recommendation, directly addressing the need for automated, ML-based downsizing suggestions without compromising performance.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS Trusted Advisor
Why it's wrong here
AWS Trusted Advisor provides best-practice checks including cost optimization, but its checks for underutilized instances are based on simple thresholds, not machine learning. It does not provide per-instance right-sizing recommendations with savings estimates.
- ✗
AWS Cost Explorer
Why it's wrong here
AWS Cost Explorer provides cost and usage reports, as well as Reserved Instance and Savings Plan recommendations. It does not recommend downsizing existing On-Demand instances.
- ✓
AWS Compute Optimizer
Why this is correct
Correct. AWS Compute Optimizer uses ML to analyze utilization patterns and recommends optimal instance types and sizes, including downsizing opportunities, along with estimated savings.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
AWS Budgets
Why it's wrong here
AWS Budgets allows you to set cost or usage thresholds and receive alerts. It does not analyze resource utilization or provide right-sizing recommendations.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse AWS Trusted Advisor's cost optimization checks with the ML-driven rightsizing capabilities of AWS Compute Optimizer, but Trusted Advisor does not provide per-instance, ML-based recommendations with estimated savings.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
AWS Compute Optimizer leverages over 70 million data points from AWS and uses a machine learning model trained on billions of anonymized workloads to identify over-provisioned resources. It analyzes CloudWatch metrics (e.g., CPU utilization, memory utilization, network throughput) over a lookback period (default 14 days) and compares them against the performance characteristics of alternative instance types, providing a savings estimate based on On-Demand pricing. A subtle behavior is that Compute Optimizer requires the EC2 instances to have at least 30 hours of historical metric data before generating recommendations, and it can also consider instance families optimized for specific workloads (e.g., compute-optimized, memory-optimized).
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this CLF-C02 question test?
Billing, Pricing, and Support — This question tests Billing, Pricing, and Support — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: AWS Compute Optimizer — AWS Compute Optimizer is the correct service because it uses machine learning to analyze historical utilization metrics (such as CPU, memory, and network) of EC2 instances and provides actionable recommendations to downsize or rightsize instances. It specifically generates estimated monthly savings for each recommendation, directly addressing the need for automated, ML-based downsizing suggestions without compromising performance.
What should I do if I get this CLF-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
This CLF-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CLF-C02 exam.
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