SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company has multiple AWS accounts and wants to centrally manage CloudWatch dashboards. Which solution should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse AWS Config aggregator (which aggregates configuration data) with CloudWatch cross-account dashboards (which aggregate metric data), or assume CloudFormation StackSets provide a central view when they only replicate resources per account.
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
✓
Use CloudWatch cross-account dashboards with a monitoring account.
CloudWatch cross-account dashboards allow you to create a single dashboard in a central monitoring account that displays metrics from multiple source accounts. This is the native AWS solution for centralized observability, requiring no additional data movement or custom code. The monitoring account uses the CloudWatch cross-account functionality to query metrics across accounts via IAM roles and the CloudWatch API.
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 CloudWatch cross-account dashboards with a monitoring account.
Why this is correct
CloudWatch cross-account dashboards let a monitoring account display metrics from source accounts without duplicating resources, satisfying the centralised management requirement across multiple AWS accounts. Source accounts share data via CloudWatch cross-account observability, so dashboards remain unified while each account retains ownership of its own metrics.
- ✗
Use AWS Config aggregator to view resources.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config aggregator collects resource configuration and compliance data across accounts; it does not host or display CloudWatch dashboards. Central dashboard management requires cross-account observability, typically CloudWatch cross-account dashboards. Config aggregation is tempting for multi-account visibility, but its data is configuration state, not metrics.
- ✗
Use Amazon QuickSight with data sources from each account.
Why it's wrong here
QuickSight visualises data from sources such as Athena or S3; it cannot render CloudWatch dashboards or their metric widgets. Central dashboard management needs CloudWatch cross-account dashboards sharing. QuickSight is tempting for consolidated reporting, but it builds BI visuals from queried datasets, not native CloudWatch dashboards.
- ✗
Use AWS CloudFormation StackSets to deploy dashboards in each account.
Why it's wrong here
StackSets deploy identical templates across accounts, but CloudWatch dashboards are Region-scoped resources that cannot be aggregated into one cross-account view; centralised management requires CloudWatch cross-account observability. StackSets suit standardised baseline provisioning, such as IAM roles or Config rules, not consolidating metrics and dashboards from many accounts into a single pane.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SAP-C02 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 SAP-C02 exam.