mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped

A company runs hundreds of Amazon EC2 instances for its application. The operations team manually reviews instance utilization metrics once a month to identify instances that are over-provisioned (e.g., using only 10% of CPU) or under-provisioned. They want to automate this analysis and receive rightsizing recommendations to optimize costs and performance. The solution must be natively provided by AWS and must use historical utilization data to generate recommendations. Which AWS service should the company use?

Question 1mediummultiple choice
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A company runs hundreds of Amazon EC2 instances for its application. The operations team manually reviews instance utilization metrics once a month to identify instances that are over-provisioned (e.g., using only 10% of CPU) or under-provisioned. They want to automate this analysis and receive rightsizing recommendations to optimize costs and performance. The solution must be natively provided by AWS and must use historical utilization data to generate recommendations. Which AWS service should the company 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

Correct. AWS Compute Optimizer uses machine learning to analyze historical utilization metrics and provides actionable rightsizing recommendations for EC2 instances, Auto Scaling groups, and EBS volumes, exactly matching the company's need for automated optimization.

B

Distractor review

AWS Trusted Advisor

Incorrect. AWS Trusted Advisor inspects your AWS environment and makes recommendations in categories like cost optimization, performance, security, and fault tolerance. However, its cost optimization recommendations are generally higher-level (e.g., underutilized instances, reserved instance opportunities) and do not provide the same granular, per-instance rightsizing recommendations that AWS Compute Optimizer offers.

C

Distractor review

AWS Cost Explorer

Incorrect. AWS Cost Explorer provides graphs and reports for analyzing your AWS costs and usage over time. It does not generate rightsizing recommendations based on resource utilization. It is a cost analysis tool, not a resource optimization tool.

D

Distractor review

AWS Systems Manager

Incorrect. AWS Systems Manager provides a unified interface to manage operational tasks on AWS resources, including patching, automation, and inventory collection. While it can gather utilization data, it does not provide built-in rightsizing recommendations like AWS Compute Optimizer.

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 analyzes the configuration and resource utilization of your AWS resources (such as EC2 instances, Auto Scaling groups, and EBS volumes) over the past 14 days or more and provides recommendations to reduce costs and improve performance. It automatically identifies over-provisioned or under-provisioned instances and suggests instance type changes. This service directly meets the requirement for automated, native, utilization-based rightsizing recommendations.

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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