SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company has a multi-account AWS environment using AWS Organizations with 50 accounts. The accounts are organized into OUs based on environment: Production, Staging, and Development. The central IT team uses AWS CloudFormation StackSets to deploy a baseline network configuration (VPC, subnets, security groups) to all accounts. Recently, the network team updated the stack set to add a new subnet to the VPC. After the update, they noticed that the stack set operation failed for 10 accounts. The error message indicates that the stack set cannot update because a resource already exists. What is the MOST LIKELY cause of this failure?
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
✓
Some accounts have manually created resources that conflict with the stack set template's resources.
StackSets deploy a common template across accounts. If a resource defined in the template (e.g., a subnet with a specific CIDR) already exists in an account due to manual creation or prior configuration, the update fails with a 'resource already exists' error. Option A is incorrect because OU configuration affects initial deployment, not updates, and the error is about resource conflict, not OU coverage. Option C is incorrect because IAM permissions would cause an 'access denied' error, not a resource conflict. Option D is incorrect because drift detection does not prevent updates; it only reports differences.
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 accounts are in different OUs and the stack set is not configured to deploy to all OUs.
Why it's wrong here
Stack set deployment targets are configured per OU or account; if all 50 accounts were already targeted, OU membership does not explain an 'already exists' error on only 10 accounts. It is tempting because OU scoping is a genuine StackSets consideration, but it would cause skipped accounts, not resource conflicts.
- ✓
Some accounts have manually created resources that conflict with the stack set template's resources.
Why this is correct
StackSets fail when a resource declared in the template already exists outside CloudFormation's control. Manually created subnets or VPCs in those ten accounts cause the update to abort with an already-exists error, since CloudFormation cannot adopt unmanaged resources.
- ✗
The network team does not have sufficient IAM permissions to update stacks in those accounts.
Why it's wrong here
Insufficient IAM permissions produce access-denied errors, not 'resource already exists' failures, and permissions are typically uniform across the accounts. It is tempting because permission problems are a common StackSets issue, but it is correct when operations fail with authorisation errors rather than conflicts.
- ✗
The stack set was previously drift-detected and the drift is preventing updates.
Why it's wrong here
Drift detection only reports differences between actual and expected resources; it does not block stack set updates or produce an 'already exists' error. It is tempting because drift is a real StackSets concern, but it is the correct answer when you need to identify unmanaged configuration changes, not explain update failures.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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