ANS-C01 Network Design Practice Question
A company needs to monitor network traffic to and from EC2 instances for security analysis. Which AWS service should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse AWS CloudTrail (API auditing) with network traffic monitoring, or assume CloudWatch Logs can capture network flows directly, but VPC Flow Logs are the only service that provides raw network traffic metadata at the VPC level.
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
✓
VPC Flow Logs
VPC Flow Logs capture IP traffic information for network interfaces in a VPC, including metadata such as source/destination IPs, ports, protocols, and packet accept/reject decisions. This makes it the correct service for monitoring network traffic to and from EC2 instances for security analysis, as it provides detailed network-level logs without requiring any agent installation on the instances.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS CloudTrail
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail logs API activity, not network traffic.
- ✗
Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch Logs can store logs but does not capture network traffic.
- ✗
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config tracks configuration changes, not traffic.
- ✓
VPC Flow Logs
Why this is correct
VPC Flow Logs capture IP traffic information.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This ANS-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 ANS-C01 exam.