SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company has a centralized logging solution using Amazon OpenSearch Service (Elasticsearch) and wants to ensure logs from all AWS accounts are shipped to a central account. Which AWS service can be used to collect and forward logs from multiple accounts to a single destination?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to assume CloudWatch Logs subscription filters (Option C) can natively forward logs across accounts, but they cannot; they require additional cross-account mechanisms like a Lambda function or Firehose with proper permissions, making Firehose the correct managed service for this centralized logging scenario.
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
✓
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream with cross-account access
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose can be configured with cross-account access by using a resource-based policy on the delivery stream that grants permissions to other AWS accounts to write log data directly. This allows logs from multiple accounts to be sent to a single Firehose delivery stream in the central account, which then delivers the logs to the OpenSearch Service domain. The cross-account capability is essential for aggregating logs without requiring intermediate storage or complex custom solutions.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon S3 bucket with cross-account bucket policy
Why it's wrong here
S3 can store logs but does not forward to OpenSearch directly.
- ✓
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream with cross-account access
Why this is correct
Firehose can accept data from multiple accounts via IAM roles and deliver to a central OpenSearch domain.
- ✗
Amazon CloudWatch Logs subscription filter
Why it's wrong here
Subscription filters are per-log group and require manual setup in each account.
- ✗
AWS Lambda function in each account that sends logs to a central API
Why it's wrong here
Lambda functions can forward logs but this is less scalable and harder to manage than Firehose.
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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