SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company wants to store application logs in a centralized location for analysis. The logs are generated by EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. The solution must be cost-effective and support real-time analysis. Which service should be used to collect and analyze the logs?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse 'real-time analysis' with needing a dedicated analytics service like Amazon Elasticsearch Service, overlooking that CloudWatch Logs provides built-in real-time monitoring and filtering capabilities without additional cost or complexity.
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
✓
Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Amazon CloudWatch Logs is the correct choice because it natively integrates with EC2 instances via the CloudWatch Logs agent to collect, monitor, and analyze log data in real time. It provides a centralized log storage with built-in metric filters and subscription filters for real-time analysis, making it cost-effective for logs generated by Auto Scaling groups without requiring additional infrastructure.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon S3
Why it's wrong here
S3 is not designed for real-time log analysis.
- ✗
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose
Why it's wrong here
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose is incorrect because it primarily functions as a managed service for reliably delivering streaming data, including logs, to various destinations such as Amazon S3, Redshift, or OpenSearch Service. While it efficiently collects and transports data, it does not inherently provide the real-time analysis capabilities required by the scenario. This option is tempting as it is a scalable, cost-effective solution for ingesting and transporting large volumes of streaming data. It would be the correct choice if the requirement was solely for automated, reliable delivery of logs to a separate analytics platform for processing.
- ✗
Amazon Elasticsearch Service
Why it's wrong here
Elasticsearch is for search and analytics, not real-time log collection.
- ✓
Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Why this is correct
CloudWatch Logs provides real-time log collection and analysis.
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