The correct answer is to attach all VPCs to a Transit Gateway and route traffic through a central inspection VPC. This design works because AWS Transit Gateway acts as a hub-and-spoke router, allowing you to direct all inter-VPC traffic through a single inspection VPC that hosts a firewall or security appliance, enforcing policy without complex peering meshes. On the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional SAP-C02 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of centralized traffic inspection across multi-account VPCs using Transit Gateway, a common pattern for compliance and security. A frequent trap is choosing VPC peering, which lacks a central inspection point, or assuming a Network Load Balancer can inspect traffic—it cannot. Remember the mnemonic “TIGER” for Transit Gateway Inspection: Traffic In, Gateway Evaluates, Routes through inspection VPC.
SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
This SAP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of design solutions for organizational complexity. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 solutions architect needs to design a network architecture for a multi-account AWS environment using AWS Transit Gateway. The company requires that all traffic between VPCs be inspected by a central security appliance. What is the MOST efficient way to achieve this?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Attach all VPCs to a Transit Gateway and route traffic through a central inspection VPC.
Option C is correct because a Transit Gateway with a central inspection VPC (using a firewall appliance) allows routing all inter-VPC traffic through the inspection point. Option A is wrong because VPC peering does not provide a central inspection point. Option B is wrong because Direct Connect is for on-premises connectivity. Option D is wrong because Network Load Balancer does not perform traffic inspection.
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 Direct Connect to connect all VPCs to a central on-premises firewall.
Why it's wrong here
Direct Connect is for on-premises, not inter-VPC traffic.
✗
Use a Network Load Balancer in each VPC to forward traffic to a firewall instance.
Why it's wrong here
NLB does not inspect traffic.
✓
Attach all VPCs to a Transit Gateway and route traffic through a central inspection VPC.
Why this is correct
Transit Gateway enables transitive routing with a central inspection VPC.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Create VPC peering connections between all VPCs and route traffic through a security VPC.
Why it's wrong here
VPC peering does not support transitive routing.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
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.
Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
→Underline the problem statement mentally.
→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 healthcare organisation deploys an application with a public-facing web tier and a private database tier. The database subnet has no public IP and only accepts connections from the web tier's security group. Questions like this test whether you can design cloud network isolation using VNets/VPCs, subnets, and security group rules.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which SAP-C02 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
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: Attach all VPCs to a Transit Gateway and route traffic through a central inspection VPC. — Option C is correct because a Transit Gateway with a central inspection VPC (using a firewall appliance) allows routing all inter-VPC traffic through the inspection point. Option A is wrong because VPC peering does not provide a central inspection point. Option B is wrong because Direct Connect is for on-premises connectivity. Option D is wrong because Network Load Balancer does not perform traffic inspection.
What should I do if I get this SAP-C02 question wrong?
Identify which SAP-C02 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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 is designing a cross-account network architecture. The security team requires that all traffic between VPCs in different accounts must be inspected by a centralized firewall appliance in the security account. The network team wants to minimize complexity and avoid route table manipulation. Which solution meets these requirements?
medium
A.Use AWS PrivateLink to connect each VPC to the security VPC via interface endpoints.
B.Set up AWS Direct Connect gateway and route all traffic through the security account.
C.Create VPC peering connections between each VPC and the security VPC, then configure route tables to route traffic through the firewall.
✓ D.Use AWS Transit Gateway with a central appliance VPC, and configure route tables to send traffic to the firewall for inspection.
Why D: Option D is correct because AWS Transit Gateway (TGW) allows you to centralize network traffic through a security appliance VPC. By attaching all VPCs to a single TGW and configuring route tables to route inter-VPC traffic to the firewall appliance in the security VPC, you meet the inspection requirement without manual route table manipulation in each spoke VPC. This design minimizes complexity by using a hub-and-spoke topology with centralized routing control.
Variation 2. A company is designing a network architecture for a multi-account AWS environment. They need to establish a central inspection VPC through which all traffic between VPCs in different accounts must pass. Which AWS service should be used to route traffic between VPCs through the inspection VPC?
easy
A.AWS Direct Connect gateway
B.VPC peering with full mesh connectivity
C.Elastic Load Balancer
✓ D.AWS Transit Gateway
Why D: AWS Transit Gateway (D) is the correct service because it acts as a central hub that can route traffic between multiple VPCs across different accounts, and it supports route tables that can force all inter-VPC traffic through a dedicated inspection VPC (e.g., using a blackhole route or a network appliance). This enables transitive routing without requiring full mesh peering, and it integrates with AWS Resource Access Manager (RAM) for cross-account sharing.
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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.
Question Discussion
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