SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company has a centralized logging account and wants all VPC Flow Logs from all accounts to be delivered to a central S3 bucket in the logging account. Each account has a VPC Flow Log configured to deliver to a bucket in the same account. What is the most efficient way to centralize these logs?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often assume VPC Flow Logs can be delivered directly to a cross-account S3 bucket (Option C), but AWS restricts delivery to the same account, making replication the only native, serverless way to centralize logs across accounts.
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
✓
Set up S3 cross-account replication from each account's bucket to the central bucket
S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) or Same-Region Replication (SRR) can be configured to automatically replicate objects from each account's VPC Flow Logs bucket to a central S3 bucket in the logging account. This approach is fully managed, requires no custom code, and ensures all logs are centralized with minimal operational overhead, while preserving the original delivery mechanism.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use a Lambda function in each account to copy logs to the central bucket
Why it's wrong here
Possible but less efficient than replication.
- ✓
Set up S3 cross-account replication from each account's bucket to the central bucket
Why this is correct
Replication is automated and efficient.
- ✗
Configure VPC Flow Logs in each account to directly deliver to the central bucket
Why it's wrong here
VPC Flow Logs can only deliver to a bucket in the same account.
- ✗
Use CloudWatch Logs subscription filter to stream logs to the central account
Why it's wrong here
This works for CloudWatch Logs, not for VPC Flow Logs delivered to S3.
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 |
Go deeper
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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