SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures Practice Question
A risk simulation workload uses CloudWatch Logs heavily. Retaining all debug logs forever is increasing costs. What should be configured?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse log retention with monitoring frequency or configuration management, mistakenly thinking that reducing metric collection (detailed monitoring) or using Config aggregation will lower log storage costs.
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
✓
CloudWatch Logs retention policies per log group
CloudWatch Logs retention policies allow you to set per-log-group expiration rules (e.g., 30 days, 90 days) to automatically delete old log events, directly reducing storage costs for debug logs that are no longer needed. This is the most cost-effective and targeted solution for managing log lifecycle without affecting other monitoring or configuration services.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
CloudWatch Logs retention policies per log group
Why this is correct
CloudWatch Logs retention policies per log group directly address the cost constraint by automatically expiring debug logs after a defined period, such as seven days. Retention is set at the log-group level, so each workload's logs can be tuned independently, eliminating indefinite storage charges without altering application logging behaviour.
- ✗
AWS Config aggregation
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config records resource configuration changes and compliance history; it does not manage CloudWatch log retention. Aggregation is tempting for multi-account governance auditing, but the stem needs a retention setting on log groups, which Config cannot apply or expire.
- ✗
CloudWatch detailed monitoring on all instances
Why it's wrong here
Detailed monitoring raises metric granularity to one-minute intervals for EC2, adding cost rather than reducing it, and leaves log retention untouched. It suits workloads needing faster alarming on instance metrics, not the stem's requirement to expire debug log events after a defined period.
- ✗
Route 53 health checks
Why it's wrong here
Health checks monitor endpoint availability and failover; they neither store nor expire log events. Route 53 is tempting when the requirement is resilience or routing across regions, but the stem demands a retention policy on CloudWatch log groups, which health checks cannot set.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SAA-C03 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 SAA-C03 exam.