The answer is to register the member account as a delegated administrator for CloudTrail in AWS Organizations. This is correct because delegation grants the member account the specific permissions needed to call the CreateTrail API with the OrganizationTrail parameter set to true, allowing it to create an organization trail on behalf of the management account without granting full administrative access. On the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional SAP-C02 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of how delegated administration centralizes logging while maintaining security boundaries—a common trap is assuming you must log into the management account or attach a cross-account IAM role, but delegation is the proper AWS-native mechanism. Remember the key distinction: only a delegated administrator, not just any IAM user in a member account, can create an organization trail. A useful memory tip is "Delegate to Create"—if you need to allow a member account to create an organization trail, delegate CloudTrail administration to that account.
SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
This SAP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of design solutions for organizational complexity. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company has a management account and several member accounts in AWS Organizations. They want to allow a developer in a member account to create an organization trail. What should they do?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Register the member account as a delegated administrator for CloudTrail in AWS Organizations.
Option A is correct because registering a member account as a delegated administrator for CloudTrail in AWS Organizations allows that account to create organization trails on behalf of the management account. This delegation grants the member account the necessary permissions to call CreateTrail with the OrganizationTrail parameter set to true, which is required for organization-wide logging.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✓
Register the member account as a delegated administrator for CloudTrail in AWS Organizations.
Why this is correct
Allows the member account to create organization trails.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Create a resource-based policy on the CloudTrail service to allow the member account to create trails.
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail does not support resource-based policies.
✗
Create an IAM role in the management account and grant the developer permission to assume it.
Why it's wrong here
Possible but not the best practice; delegated admin is simpler.
✗
Attach an SCP to the member account that allows CloudTrail actions.
Why it's wrong here
SCPs cannot grant actions; they only deny.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often assume creating an IAM role in the management account (Option C) is sufficient, but they miss that organization trails require the member account to be explicitly registered as a delegated administrator in AWS Organizations to bypass the default restriction that only the management account can create organization trails.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, the delegated administrator feature uses the RegisterDelegatedAdministrator API in AWS Organizations to grant the member account the `cloudtrail:CreateTrail` and `cloudtrail:PutEventSelectors` permissions with the `OrganizationTrail` condition. This is necessary because organization trails write to a CloudTrail bucket in the management account, and the delegated administrator must have cross-account permissions to manage that bucket’s policy. A real-world scenario is when a company wants to centralize logging but allow a security team in a member account to manage the trail without giving them full management account access.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity — This question tests Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Register the member account as a delegated administrator for CloudTrail in AWS Organizations. — Option A is correct because registering a member account as a delegated administrator for CloudTrail in AWS Organizations allows that account to create organization trails on behalf of the management account. This delegation grants the member account the necessary permissions to call CreateTrail with the OrganizationTrail parameter set to true, which is required for organization-wide logging.
What should I do if I get this SAP-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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