Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company has a compliance policy requiring that all Amazon EC2 instances in its production environment must have the tag "Environment=Production" and must be associated with a security group named "Prod-SG". The company wants to continuously monitor its AWS account and automatically detect any EC2 instances that do not meet these requirements. The IT team needs a service that can evaluate the configuration of resources against these rules and send notifications when a non-compliant resource is detected. 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
Distractor review
AWS Trusted Advisor
AWS Trusted Advisor provides recommendations based on AWS best practices, but it does not support custom rules to evaluate resource configurations against company-specific policies. It cannot check for specific tags or security group associations.
B
Distractor review
Amazon GuardDuty
Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that uses machine learning to identify suspicious activity, such as unusual API calls or compromised credentials. It does not evaluate resource configurations for compliance with tagging or security group rules.
C
Best answer
AWS Config
AWS Config allows you to define rules (both managed and custom) that evaluate the configuration of your AWS resources. It continuously monitors for changes and can automatically detect resources that violate your policies, such as missing tags or incorrect security groups, and send notifications through Amazon SNS.
D
Distractor review
Amazon Inspector
Amazon Inspector is a vulnerability management service that scans workloads for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure. It does not check resource metadata like tags or security group associations for compliance.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
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.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- 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.
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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?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: AWS Config — AWS Config is the correct service because it provides managed and custom rules that evaluate the configuration of AWS resources against desired policies. It continuously monitors resources, detects configuration changes, and can trigger notifications (via Amazon SNS) when resources become non-compliant. In this scenario, AWS Config can be configured with a rule to check that EC2 instances have the required tag and are associated with a specific security group. AWS Trusted Advisor is an advisory service that offers best practice checks across cost, performance, security, and fault tolerance, but it does not support custom compliance rules or resource-level configuration evaluation. Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that analyzes network and account activity for malicious behavior, not resource configuration compliance. Amazon Inspector is a vulnerability management service that assesses applications for software vulnerabilities and network exposure, not for tagging or security group compliance.
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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