SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
This SAP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of design solutions for organizational complexity. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A global company with 50 AWS accounts uses AWS Organizations and wants to centralize CloudTrail logs. The security team requires that all accounts send their CloudTrail logs to a central S3 bucket in the audit account. Which combination of steps will ensure this?
Use AWS Config to forward logs to a central S3 bucket.
Why wrong: AWS Config is for resource configuration, not API activity logging.
B
Enable CloudTrail in each account and use AWS Organizations to aggregate logs.
Why wrong: Organizations does not aggregate CloudTrail logs automatically.
C
Create a CloudTrail trail in the audit account that logs all accounts via CloudWatch Logs.
Why wrong: CloudTrail does not log other accounts via CloudWatch Logs.
D
Create a CloudTrail trail in the audit account with an S3 bucket, and add a bucket policy that grants cross-account permissions for each member account to deliver logs. Then configure each member account to use the same trail.
This is the standard cross-account CloudTrail setup.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create a CloudTrail trail in the audit account with an S3 bucket, and add a bucket policy that grants cross-account permissions for each member account to deliver logs. Then configure each member account to use the same trail.
Option D is correct because it uses a single CloudTrail trail in the audit account with a central S3 bucket, and the bucket policy grants the necessary s3:PutObject permissions to each member account's CloudTrail service principal. Each member account then configures CloudTrail to use the same trail (the audit account's trail), which allows CloudTrail to deliver logs from all accounts to the central bucket without requiring separate trails or manual log forwarding.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
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 AWS Config to forward logs to a central S3 bucket.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config is for resource configuration, not API activity logging.
✗
Enable CloudTrail in each account and use AWS Organizations to aggregate logs.
Why it's wrong here
Organizations does not aggregate CloudTrail logs automatically.
✗
Create a CloudTrail trail in the audit account that logs all accounts via CloudWatch Logs.
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail does not log other accounts via CloudWatch Logs.
✓
Create a CloudTrail trail in the audit account with an S3 bucket, and add a bucket policy that grants cross-account permissions for each member account to deliver logs. Then configure each member account to use the same trail.
Why this is correct
This is the standard cross-account CloudTrail setup.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often think they need to enable CloudTrail in each account individually (Option B) or use a different service like AWS Config (Option A), when the correct approach is to create a single organization trail in the audit account with cross-account permissions and have member accounts reference that trail.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
The cross-account bucket policy must explicitly allow the CloudTrail service principal (cloudtrail.amazonaws.com) from each member account to write objects, and the bucket must have a bucket policy that grants s3:PutObject and s3:GetBucketAcl permissions. Additionally, the trail must be created in the audit account with the 'Enable for all accounts in my organization' option (or manually configured per account), and each member account must use the same trail ARN. This approach avoids the complexity of managing multiple trails and ensures log integrity through a single point of delivery.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity — This question tests Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Create a CloudTrail trail in the audit account with an S3 bucket, and add a bucket policy that grants cross-account permissions for each member account to deliver logs. Then configure each member account to use the same trail. — Option D is correct because it uses a single CloudTrail trail in the audit account with a central S3 bucket, and the bucket policy grants the necessary s3:PutObject permissions to each member account's CloudTrail service principal. Each member account then configures CloudTrail to use the same trail (the audit account's trail), which allows CloudTrail to deliver logs from all accounts to the central bucket without requiring separate trails or manual log forwarding.
What should I do if I get this SAP-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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