DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A company uses Amazon CloudWatch Logs to collect application logs from EC2 instances. The logs are exported to Amazon S3 for long-term storage. Recently, the export task failed with the error 'Access Denied'. What is the most likely cause of this failure?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse the permissions needed for exporting logs to S3 (which requires s3:PutObject on the IAM role) with the permissions needed for sending logs from EC2 to CloudWatch Logs (which requires CloudWatch Logs agent permissions and possibly a VPC endpoint).
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
✓
The IAM role does not have s3:PutObject permission on the destination bucket.
The export task from CloudWatch Logs to S3 uses an IAM role to write data to the destination bucket. If the role lacks the s3:PutObject permission, the S3 service will reject the request with an 'Access Denied' error. This is the most common cause because the export operation requires write access to the bucket.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The S3 bucket policy denies access from the CloudWatch Logs service.
Why it's wrong here
While possible, the error is likely due to missing IAM permissions.
- ✓
The IAM role does not have s3:PutObject permission on the destination bucket.
Why this is correct
Without PutObject, the export task cannot write logs to S3.
- ✗
The IAM role does not have s3:ListBucket permission.
Why it's wrong here
Export only needs PutObject, not ListBucket.
- ✗
The EC2 instances are in a VPC without a VPC endpoint for CloudWatch Logs.
Why it's wrong here
VPC endpoint is for sending logs, not exporting.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,711 original DEA-C01 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DEA-C01 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 DEA-C01 exam.