Question 1,060 of 1,750
Monitoring and LoggingmediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

Centralized Log Collection from Multiple Sources with CloudWatch Agent

This DOP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of monitoring and logging. 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 wants to collect and analyze logs from on-premises servers and send them to AWS for centralized monitoring. Which combination of AWS services should be used?

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

Amazon CloudWatch Agent on the on-premises servers to send logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

Option A is correct: CloudWatch Agent collects logs from on-prem servers and sends to CloudWatch Logs. Option B is wrong because Kinesis Agent is for streaming data to Kinesis, not CloudWatch Logs directly. Option C is wrong because the unified CloudWatch Agent is the recommended tool. Option D is wrong because SSM Agent does not collect logs.

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.

  • Amazon CloudWatch Agent on the on-premises servers to send logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

    Why this is correct

    The CloudWatch Agent can collect logs and metrics from on-premises servers and send to CloudWatch.

    Related concept

    Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

  • Amazon Kinesis Agent on the on-premises servers to send logs to Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose, then to Amazon S3.

    Why it's wrong here

    While possible, this is not the most straightforward for CloudWatch Logs integration; the CloudWatch Agent is designed for this.

  • Amazon CloudWatch Agent with the awslogs configuration to send logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

    Why it's wrong here

    This is the same as A; the awslogs configuration is part of the CloudWatch Agent, but option A is more general and correct.

  • AWS Systems Manager Agent to collect logs and send to Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

    Why it's wrong here

    SSM Agent is for management and patching, not log collection.

Common exam traps

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.

Detailed technical explanation

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.

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 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

Got this wrong? Here's your next step.

Identify which DOP-C02 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.

Related practice questions

Related DOP-C02 practice-question pages

Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.

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FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this DOP-C02 question test?

Monitoring and Logging — This question tests Monitoring and Logging — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Amazon CloudWatch Agent on the on-premises servers to send logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs. — Option A is correct: CloudWatch Agent collects logs from on-prem servers and sends to CloudWatch Logs. Option B is wrong because Kinesis Agent is for streaming data to Kinesis, not CloudWatch Logs directly. Option C is wrong because the unified CloudWatch Agent is the recommended tool. Option D is wrong because SSM Agent does not collect logs.

What should I do if I get this DOP-C02 question wrong?

Identify which DOP-C02 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.

What is the key concept behind this question?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

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Same concept, more angles

2 more ways this is tested on DOP-C02

These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.

Variation 1. A DevOps engineer needs to centrally collect and analyze logs from multiple AWS accounts and on-premises servers. Which AWS service should be used to aggregate logs in a single dashboard?

easy
  • A.Amazon Athena.
  • B.Amazon S3.
  • C.Amazon CloudWatch Logs.
  • D.Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose.

Why C: Amazon CloudWatch Logs is the correct service to centrally collect and analyze logs from multiple AWS accounts and on-premises servers in a single dashboard. It supports cross-account log aggregation via subscription filters and can visualize logs using CloudWatch Logs Insights. Option A (Amazon Athena) is a query service for S3 data, not a dashboard. Option B (Amazon S3) is an object storage service, not a dashboard. Option D (Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose) is a streaming data delivery service, not a dashboard.

Variation 2. Your company runs a multi-tier web application on AWS. The application consists of an Application Load Balancer (ALB) that distributes traffic to a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances running a web server. The web servers write access logs to a shared Amazon EFS filesystem. The operations team needs to monitor the web server logs in real-time to detect and alert on 5xx error spikes. Currently, the team manually SSHes into instances to tail logs, which is inefficient and doesn't provide real-time alerting. The team wants a centralized, near-real-time logging solution with minimal operational overhead. They have asked you to design a solution that ingests logs from the EFS filesystem into a centralized log analytics platform. Which solution would you recommend?

medium
  • A.Enable AWS CloudTrail data events for the EC2 instances to capture log file modifications.
  • B.Configure an Amazon EventBridge scheduled rule to invoke an AWS Lambda function that reads new log lines from EFS and publishes them to Amazon CloudWatch Logs.
  • C.Stream the log files to Amazon Kinesis Data Streams using a custom producer, then use a Lambda function to analyze and alert on 5xx errors.
  • D.Install and configure the Amazon CloudWatch Logs agent on each EC2 instance to tail the log files from the EFS mount and send them to CloudWatch Logs. Create a metric filter and alarm for 5xx errors.

Why D: Option D is correct because installing the CloudWatch Logs agent on each EC2 instance allows it to tail the log files from the shared EFS mount point and stream them to CloudWatch Logs in near real-time. This provides centralized log ingestion with minimal operational overhead, and you can create a metric filter and alarm to detect and alert on 5xx error spikes without manual SSH access.

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Last reviewed: Jun 20, 2026

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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.