SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A multinational corporation is using AWS Organizations with hundreds of accounts. The finance team needs to track costs by cost center, which is stored as a tag on each resource. However, some resources are missing the tag. What is the most efficient way to ensure that all resources are tagged correctly going forward?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse AWS Config rules (detective control) with tag policies (preventive control), or incorrectly assume that SCPs can enforce tagging at resource creation, when in fact SCPs cannot condition on resource tags for most services and are not designed for tag enforcement.
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 tag policies in AWS Organizations to enforce tagging on new resources
Tag policies in AWS Organizations allow you to define a set of tagging rules that are enforced across all accounts in the organization. When a tag policy is attached to an organizational root, OU, or account, AWS automatically prevents the creation of resources that do not comply with the specified tags, ensuring that all new resources are tagged correctly from the start without requiring manual remediation or custom scripts.
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 rules to identify untagged resources and send alerts
Why it's wrong here
Alerts do not enforce tagging.
- ✓
Use tag policies in AWS Organizations to enforce tagging on new resources
Why this is correct
Tag policies proactively enforce tagging rules.
- ✗
Attach an SCP that denies all actions if the resource does not have the cost center tag
Why it's wrong here
This could block legitimate operations and is too restrictive.
- ✗
Create a Lambda function that runs daily to tag untagged resources
Why it's wrong here
Reactive and does not prevent untagged resources from being created.
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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on SAP-C02
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company uses AWS Organizations and wants to enable cost allocation across business units using tags. They require that all resources are tagged with a 'CostCenter' tag. What is the most effective way to enforce this?
medium- A.Create an IAM policy in each account that requires the CostCenter tag.
- B.Use AWS Config rules to identify untagged resources and automatically tag them.
- ✓ C.Create a tag policy in AWS Organizations that requires the CostCenter tag on resources.
- D.Use an SCP to deny resource creation if the CostCenter tag is missing.
Why C: AWS Organizations tag policies allow you to define rules for tagging resources across all accounts in the organization, including enforcement of required tags like 'CostCenter'. Tag policies are evaluated at resource creation and can prevent non-compliant resources from being created, ensuring consistent cost allocation tagging without requiring individual account-level IAM changes.
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.