This ANS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of network design. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 is deploying a new application in a VPC that uses a single Availability Zone. The application consists of an Application Load Balancer (ALB) in a public subnet and EC2 instances in a private subnet. The EC2 instances need to send logs to an Amazon S3 bucket. The company has created a VPC gateway endpoint for S3 and associated it with the route table for the private subnet. The EC2 instances have an instance profile that grants access to the S3 bucket. However, the log delivery fails. The network team has verified that the route table for the private subnet includes a route to the S3 prefix list via the gateway endpoint. What is the MOST likely cause of the failure?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "most likely"
Why it matters: Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The VPC endpoint policy does not allow the PutObject action on the S3 bucket.
The most likely cause is that the VPC endpoint policy does not allow the PutObject action on the S3 bucket. Even though the route table has a route to the S3 prefix list via the gateway endpoint and the EC2 instance profile grants access, the endpoint policy acts as an additional layer of authorization. If the endpoint policy does not explicitly allow the s3:PutObject action for the target bucket, requests will be denied, causing the log delivery to fail.
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.
✗
The route table does not have a route to the S3 prefix list.
Why it's wrong here
Route is present.
✗
The VPC endpoint is not configured with private DNS.
The VPC endpoint policy does not allow the PutObject action on the S3 bucket.
Why this is correct
Correct: Endpoint policy must allow the action.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "most likely" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often assume that if routing is correct and the instance has IAM permissions, the request will succeed, overlooking that the VPC endpoint policy is a separate authorization layer that must explicitly allow the action.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Gateway endpoints for S3 use prefix lists in route tables to direct traffic to the S3 service without leaving the AWS network. However, the endpoint policy is evaluated alongside IAM policies (instance profile) and S3 bucket policies; all must allow the action for the request to succeed. In this scenario, the instance profile grants access, but the endpoint policy likely defaults to a full access policy or a custom policy that may not include the necessary s3:PutObject permission for the specific bucket, causing a denial even though routing and instance-level permissions are correct.
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.
TExam Day Tips
→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 exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Network Design — This question tests Network Design — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: The VPC endpoint policy does not allow the PutObject action on the S3 bucket. — The most likely cause is that the VPC endpoint policy does not allow the PutObject action on the S3 bucket. Even though the route table has a route to the S3 prefix list via the gateway endpoint and the EC2 instance profile grants access, the endpoint policy acts as an additional layer of authorization. If the endpoint policy does not explicitly allow the s3:PutObject action for the target bucket, requests will be denied, causing the log delivery to fail.
What should I do if I get this ANS-C01 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "most likely". Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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