This DOP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of security and compliance. 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's security team requires that all API calls to AWS are logged for audit purposes. Which service should be enabled to capture and store these logs?
AWS CloudTrail
CloudTrail logs all AWS API calls for auditing.
Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Why wrong: CloudWatch Logs is for application and system logs, not API calls.
AWS Config
Why wrong: Config records resource configuration changes, not API calls.
Amazon VPC Flow Logs
Why wrong: Flow Logs capture network traffic, not API calls.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
AWS CloudTrail
AWS CloudTrail is the correct service because it is specifically designed to log all API calls made to the AWS environment, including calls made via the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, command line tools, and higher-level AWS services. CloudTrail captures the identity of the caller, the time of the call, the source IP address, the request parameters, and the response elements, storing this information in a log file that can be delivered to an Amazon S3 bucket for long-term audit storage. This directly meets the security team's requirement to capture and store all API calls for audit purposes.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
AWS CloudTrail
Why this is correct
CloudTrail logs all AWS API calls for auditing.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch Logs is for application and system logs, not API calls.
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
Config records resource configuration changes, not API calls.
Amazon VPC Flow Logs
Why it's wrong here
Flow Logs capture network traffic, not API calls.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse CloudWatch Logs with CloudTrail because both involve 'logging', but CloudWatch Logs is for application and system logs (e.g., from EC2 or Lambda), while CloudTrail is exclusively for AWS API call logs, and the question explicitly asks for 'API calls to AWS'.
Detailed technical explanation
CloudTrail works by recording every AWS API call as a CloudTrail event, which is structured in JSON format and includes fields like 'eventSource', 'eventName', 'userIdentity', 'sourceIPAddress', and 'requestParameters'. By default, CloudTrail creates a trail that logs the most recent 90 days of management events in the CloudTrail Event History, but for long-term storage and audit compliance, you must create a trail that delivers log files to an S3 bucket, optionally with log file validation enabled using SHA-256 hashing to ensure integrity. A real-world scenario where this matters is when a security team needs to prove that a specific IAM user deleted an S3 bucket at a certain time; CloudTrail provides the exact API call (DeleteBucket) with the user ARN and timestamp, which can be used in forensic analysis or compliance audits.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
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FAQ
Security and Compliance — This question tests Security and Compliance — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: AWS CloudTrail — AWS CloudTrail is the correct service because it is specifically designed to log all API calls made to the AWS environment, including calls made via the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, command line tools, and higher-level AWS services. CloudTrail captures the identity of the caller, the time of the call, the source IP address, the request parameters, and the response elements, storing this information in a log file that can be delivered to an Amazon S3 bucket for long-term audit storage. This directly meets the security team's requirement to capture and store all API calls for audit purposes.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
This DOP-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 DOP-C02 exam.
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