SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company has multiple business units, each with its own AWS account. They want to enforce that all EC2 instances launched across accounts use only approved AMIs. The AMIs are stored in a central account. What is the MOST scalable and secure way to enforce this?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to assume SCPs can enforce resource-level conditions like AMI IDs, but SCPs only support service-level condition keys (e.g., aws:SourceAccount) and cannot evaluate instance-specific attributes, making AWS Config with auto-remediation the correct scalable and secure solution.
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 AWS Config rules to check AMI IDs against a parameter store and auto-remediate.
AWS Config rules can evaluate EC2 instances against a centrally managed list of approved AMI IDs stored in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store, and auto-remediate non-compliant instances (e.g., by terminating or stopping them). This approach is scalable across multiple accounts via AWS Config aggregator and cross-account IAM roles, and it is secure because it enforces compliance continuously without relying on client-side IAM policies that can be bypassed.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Tag approved AMIs and use IAM policies to require that tag.
Why it's wrong here
Tagging does not prevent launching with other AMIs.
- ✗
Use an IAM policy in each account to allow only specific AMI IDs.
Why it's wrong here
IAM policies cannot restrict AMI IDs based on source account.
- ✓
Use AWS Config rules to check AMI IDs against a parameter store and auto-remediate.
Why this is correct
Config rules can evaluate resources and trigger remediation, scalable across accounts.
- ✗
Use an SCP to deny ec2:RunInstances unless the AMI ID matches an approved list.
Why it's wrong here
SCPs cannot filter by AMI ID value.
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JA
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.