SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
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?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates 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.
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
✓
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.
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.
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.
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 |
Go deeper
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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