SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company uses AWS Organizations with a central security account. They need to ensure that any S3 bucket created in any account is configured with encryption and versioning enabled. Which THREE steps should they take?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates think IAM policies alone can enforce resource configuration parameters, but IAM only controls permissions, not the actual values passed in the API call, which requires SCPs or service-specific controls.
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 CloudFormation StackSets to deploy a stack in each account that creates a bucket with encryption and versioning, and use SCPs to prevent deletion.
AWS CloudFormation StackSets allow you to deploy a standardized stack across multiple accounts in an organization, ensuring that any bucket created by the stack has encryption and versioning enabled. Combining this with a service control policy (SCP) that denies s3:CreateBucket unless encryption and versioning are specified (Option D) provides a preventive guardrail at the organization level. Additionally, deploying AWS Config rules with auto-remediation (Option C) acts as a detective and corrective measure, ensuring compliance even if buckets are created outside the approved stack.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Create IAM policies in each account that require encryption and versioning for any bucket creation.
Why it's wrong here
Hard to manage across many accounts.
- ✓
Use AWS CloudFormation StackSets to deploy a stack in each account that creates a bucket with encryption and versioning, and use SCPs to prevent deletion.
Why this is correct
Ensures a compliant bucket exists.
- ✓
Deploy AWS Config rules across all accounts to detect buckets without encryption or versioning and trigger auto-remediation.
Why this is correct
Detects and fixes existing buckets.
- ✓
Apply a service control policy (SCP) that denies s3:CreateBucket unless encryption and versioning are specified.
Why this is correct
Prevents non-compliant bucket creation.
- ✗
Use AWS CloudTrail to monitor bucket creation and send alerts.
Why it's wrong here
Only alerts, does not enforce.
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 |
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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.