SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company uses AWS Organizations with multiple OUs. The DevOps team needs to allow developers to launch EC2 instances only of type t3.micro in the dev OU. Which action should the team take?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently choose AWS Config rules (Option D) thinking they can prevent launches, but Config is detective, not preventive; SCPs are the correct preventive control at the organization level.
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
✓
Apply a Service Control Policy (SCP) to the dev OU that denies ec2:RunInstances with instance type not equal to t3.micro.
A Service Control Policy (SCP) applied to the dev OU can centrally restrict which EC2 instance types can be launched by all accounts within that OU. The SCP uses a Deny effect with a condition key ec2:InstanceType not equal to t3.micro, which prevents any IAM principal in the OU from launching non-compliant instances, regardless of their IAM permissions. This is the most effective way to enforce a hard boundary at the organization level.
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 an IAM role with a policy that allows only t3.micro, and attach it to users in the dev OU.
Why it's wrong here
IAM roles do not restrict launch via other roles.
- ✗
Use AWS CloudFormation templates that specify t3.micro.
Why it's wrong here
Does not prevent manual launches.
- ✓
Apply a Service Control Policy (SCP) to the dev OU that denies ec2:RunInstances with instance type not equal to t3.micro.
Why this is correct
SCPs prevent non-compliant actions at the OU level.
- ✗
Use AWS Config rules to terminate non-compliant instances.
Why it's wrong here
Does not prevent launch.
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Variation 1. A company uses AWS Organizations with several OUs for different environments (dev, test, prod). They want to restrict the use of specific EC2 instance types in the prod OU only. Which approach should they use?
easy- A.Create a separate AWS account for prod and use an IAM policy on the account.
- ✓ B.Attach a service control policy (SCP) to the prod OU that denies ec2:RunInstances for non-approved instance types.
- C.Attach an IAM policy to all users in the prod accounts that denies non-approved instance types.
- D.Use AWS Config to detect non-approved instance types and terminate them.
Why B: Service control policies (SCPs) are the correct mechanism to centrally restrict permissions across all accounts within an AWS Organizations organizational unit (OU). By attaching an SCP to the prod OU that denies ec2:RunInstances for non-approved instance types, you enforce a guardrail that applies to every principal (including root users) in all accounts under that OU, regardless of IAM policies. This ensures that even if a user or role has an IAM policy allowing all EC2 instances, the SCP will block the non-approved types.
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.