SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company uses AWS Organizations with consolidated billing. The finance team needs to track costs by department, which are tagged with 'department' tags. However, some resources are not tagged. The team wants to ensure that all new resources are tagged, and existing untagged resources are identified. What should they do?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse AWS Config's ability to detect non-compliance with the ability to automatically remediate (e.g., apply tags), or assume that Cost Explorer can enforce tagging, when in fact it only reports on existing tags.
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 a service control policy (SCP) to deny resource creation without the 'department' tag, and use AWS Config rules to detect untagged resources.
It combines two complementary AWS services to solve both requirements. A service control policy (SCP) can deny the creation of any resource that does not include the required 'department' tag, enforcing tagging at the organization level across all accounts. AWS Config rules can then be used to detect existing untagged resources by evaluating resources against a desired tagging configuration, providing visibility into non-compliant resources without automatically modifying them.
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 a service control policy (SCP) to deny resource creation without the 'department' tag, and use AWS Config rules to detect untagged resources.
Why this is correct
SCPs set the maximum available permissions for accounts in AWS Organizations, so denying resource creation without the 'department' tag enforces tagging on new resources. AWS Config rules continuously evaluate existing resources and flag untagged ones, satisfying both the prevention and detection requirements.
- ✗
Use AWS Config rules to enforce tagging on existing resources and automatically tag them.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config rules evaluate compliance and can trigger remediation, but they do not automatically tag resources; the remediation action must be configured separately, and Config cannot retroactively tag arbitrary resource types. It is tempting because Config is the standard service for detecting untagged resources, which suits identification rather than enforcement.
- ✗
Use AWS Cost Explorer to report on untagged resources.
Why it's wrong here
Cost Explorer only reports on existing cost and usage data; it cannot enforce tagging on new resources nor systematically inventory untagged ones. It tempts because it visualises costs by tag, which suits retrospective spend analysis rather than governance enforcement.
- ✗
Create an IAM policy that requires tagging for all actions and attach it to all users.
Why it's wrong here
IAM policies gate API calls, not resource tagging state; an untagged resource can still be created through services or paths where the condition is absent, and existing untagged resources are never surfaced. It is tempting because tag-on-create conditions do enforce tags at request time, which suits blocking new deployments, not auditing existing ones.
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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.