ANS-C01 Network Management and Operations Practice Question
A company uses VPC Flow Logs to monitor network traffic. The flow logs are published to Amazon S3. The security team wants to analyze the logs for suspicious traffic patterns using Amazon Athena. After creating the Athena table, queries return zero results. The logs are in the correct S3 bucket. What is the most likely cause?
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 Athena table is not configured to read from the correct S3 partition structure
VPC Flow Logs are stored in a partitioned folder structure (e.g., AWSLogs/account-id/vpcflowlogs/region/year/month/day/). If the Athena table does not use partition projection or is not configured to read from the correct partition structure, queries return no data. Option A is wrong because SSE-KMS encryption can be used with Athena if proper permissions are granted. Option B is wrong because the table can be in any AWS Glue database. Option C is wrong because Athena supports gzip format.
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 flow logs are encrypted with SSE-KMS and Athena does not have permission to decrypt
Why it's wrong here
Athena can read encrypted data with proper permissions.
- ✗
The Athena table is in a different AWS Glue database
Why it's wrong here
Database location does not affect query results.
- ✗
The flow logs are in gzip format, which Athena does not support
Why it's wrong here
Athena supports gzip.
- ✓
The Athena table is not configured to read from the correct S3 partition structure
Why this is correct
Partition structure must match the log location.
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 |
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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.