The answer is to use a bucket policy on the central S3 bucket to allow cross-account delivery from all accounts. This is the most efficient approach because it leverages a single, declarative policy in the management account that grants the necessary permissions for any member account’s VPC Flow Logs service to write directly to the central bucket, eliminating the need for manual setup or intermediary services. On the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional SAP-C02 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of centralized logging architectures and cross-account resource-based policies, often appearing as a trap where candidates mistakenly choose enabling flow logs per account or using CloudWatch Logs, which adds unnecessary complexity and cost. The key insight is that VPC Flow Logs support direct delivery to an S3 bucket in a different account, provided the destination bucket policy explicitly allows the source account’s log delivery principal. Memory tip: think “bucket policy, not per-account setup” to centralize logs efficiently.
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 company uses AWS Organizations with multiple accounts. They want to centralize VPC flow logs for all VPCs across accounts. The logs should be stored in a central S3 bucket in the management account. 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
✓
Use a bucket policy on the central S3 bucket to allow cross-account delivery from all accounts.
Option C is correct because you can create a bucket policy in the management account that allows cross-account delivery. Option A is wrong because it requires manual setup. Option B is wrong because CloudWatch Logs is not centralized. Option D is wrong because enabling flow logs on each VPC individually is inefficient.
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 a bucket policy on the central S3 bucket to allow cross-account delivery from all accounts.
Why this is correct
Bucket policy allows any account to deliver logs to that bucket.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Enable VPC flow logs at the organization level using CloudTrail.
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail does not enable VPC flow logs.
✗
Create a flow log in each account and configure it to deliver to a central S3 bucket.
Why it's wrong here
Requires manual configuration per account.
✗
Use CloudWatch Logs in each account and stream to a central log group.
Why it's wrong here
Not centralized in S3 as required.
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 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 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: Use a bucket policy on the central S3 bucket to allow cross-account delivery from all accounts. — Option C is correct because you can create a bucket policy in the management account that allows cross-account delivery. Option A is wrong because it requires manual setup. Option B is wrong because CloudWatch Logs is not centralized. Option D is wrong because enabling flow logs on each VPC individually is inefficient.
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 uses AWS Organizations with 50 accounts. The network team wants to centrally manage VPC flow logs for all accounts, storing them in a central S3 bucket in the security account. The flow logs must be encrypted with a KMS key managed by the security account. What is the MOST efficient way to configure this?
hard
A.Manually create VPC flow logs in each account and point to the central S3 bucket
✓ B.Use AWS CloudFormation StackSets to deploy a stack that creates VPC flow logs with the required configuration in all accounts
C.Use AWS Config rules to enforce flow log creation across accounts
D.Use AWS Systems Manager Automation to create flow logs in each account
Why B: Option D is correct because CloudFormation StackSets can deploy the required resources across all accounts efficiently. Option A is wrong because manually configuring each account is not efficient. Option B is wrong because AWS Config can detect but not deploy. Option C is wrong because SSM Automation documents are run per account but require additional setup.
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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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