The answer is to designate a member account as the GuardDuty delegated administrator. This is correct because AWS Organizations allows you to specify a single member account to centrally manage GuardDuty across the entire organization, enabling the service for all accounts with one API call or console action, rather than requiring manual enablement in each account. On the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional SAP-C02 exam, this concept tests your understanding of how to scale security services efficiently in multi-account environments, often appearing in questions about centralized management versus per-account configuration. A common trap is assuming the management account must be the delegated administrator, but AWS best practice is to use a dedicated security or member account to avoid mixing governance with operational security. Remember the mnemonic: "Delegate a member, not the master" to keep the management account clean and secure.
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 and wants to centrally manage Amazon GuardDuty across all accounts. Which TWO steps are required to enable GuardDuty in all accounts from a single management account?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use the GuardDuty delegated administrator account to enable GuardDuty for all accounts in the organization
Option D is correct because AWS Organizations allows you to designate a GuardDuty delegated administrator account, which can then enable GuardDuty for all member accounts in the organization with a single API call or via the console. This eliminates the need to manually enable GuardDuty in each account, as the delegated administrator manages the service centrally across the entire organization.
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 CloudFormation StackSets to deploy GuardDuty in each account
Why it's wrong here
Possible but not the most straightforward centralized approach.
✗
Enable GuardDuty manually in each member account by logging into each account
Why it's wrong here
This is not centralized.
✗
Create a service control policy to force GuardDuty to be enabled
Why it's wrong here
SCPs cannot enable services.
✓
Use the GuardDuty delegated administrator account to enable GuardDuty for all accounts in the organization
Why this is correct
Delegated administrator can enable GuardDuty across all accounts via API.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Designate a member account as the GuardDuty delegated administrator
Why this is correct
Delegated administrator can manage GuardDuty across the organization.
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 confuse service control policies (SCPs) with proactive enforcement, but SCPs only restrict permissions and cannot automatically enable a service; they also overlook that CloudFormation StackSets cannot enable a service like GuardDuty, which requires a specific API action rather than resource deployment.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
When you designate a delegated administrator for GuardDuty in AWS Organizations, that account gains the ability to call the EnableOrganizationAdminAccount and EnableOrganizationGuardDuty APIs, which automatically enable GuardDuty in all existing and future member accounts. This leverages the AWS Organizations trust relationship, where the delegated administrator can manage GuardDuty across accounts without needing cross-account IAM roles or manual setup. Under the hood, GuardDuty creates a service-linked role in each member account to allow the delegated administrator to manage findings and configurations.
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 cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.
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: Use the GuardDuty delegated administrator account to enable GuardDuty for all accounts in the organization — Option D is correct because AWS Organizations allows you to designate a GuardDuty delegated administrator account, which can then enable GuardDuty for all member accounts in the organization with a single API call or via the console. This eliminates the need to manually enable GuardDuty in each account, as the delegated administrator manages the service centrally across the entire organization.
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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