PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
A SAP administrator wants to monitor the CPU utilization of an SAP application server running on an EC2 instance. Which AWS service should be used to set up an alarm when CPU utilization exceeds 90% for 5 minutes?
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
✓
Amazon CloudWatch
Amazon CloudWatch is the correct service for monitoring CPU utilization and setting alarms. CloudWatch collects metrics like CPUUtilization from EC2 instances, and you can create a CloudWatch Alarm that triggers when the metric exceeds a threshold (e.g., 90%) for a specified duration (e.g., 5 minutes). The other options are incorrect: AWS CloudTrail logs API calls for auditing, not metrics; AWS Trusted Advisor provides best practice recommendations; and AWS Config tracks resource configuration changes. Therefore, CloudWatch (Option C) is the correct choice.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS CloudTrail
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail logs API activity, not performance metrics.
- ✗
AWS Trusted Advisor
Why it's wrong here
Trusted Advisor provides recommendations, not real-time alarms.
- ✓
Amazon CloudWatch
Why this is correct
CloudWatch Alarms can monitor metrics and trigger actions based on thresholds.
- ✗
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config evaluates resource configurations, not performance.
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Same concept, more angles
2 more ways this is tested on PAS-C01
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. An SAP administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an SAP application server EC2 instance and send an alert if it exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used?
easy- A.AWS CloudTrail
- B.VPC Flow Logs
- ✓ C.Amazon CloudWatch Alarm
- D.AWS Config
Why C: Amazon CloudWatch Alarm is the correct service for monitoring CPU utilization and sending alerts when the CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. CloudWatch Alarms can be configured to monitor any CloudWatch metric (such as CPUUtilization) and trigger actions like sending a notification via Amazon SNS. Option A (AWS CloudTrail) is incorrect because it records API calls for auditing, not metric monitoring. Option B (VPC Flow Logs) is incorrect as it captures network traffic information, not CPU metrics. Option D (AWS Config) is incorrect because it evaluates resource compliance against rules, not performance metrics.
Variation 2. An SAP Basis administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of all EC2 instances running SAP applications. The team wants to receive alerts when CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used to set up this monitoring and alerting?
easy- ✓ A.Amazon CloudWatch
- B.AWS Trusted Advisor
- C.AWS CloudTrail
- D.AWS Config
Why A: Amazon CloudWatch is the correct service because it can collect CPU utilization metrics from EC2 instances and trigger alarms when the metric exceeds a threshold (e.g., 80% for 5 consecutive minutes). AWS Trusted Advisor provides best-practice recommendations but cannot create custom metric alarms. AWS CloudTrail is for auditing API calls, not monitoring performance metrics. AWS Config tracks resource configuration changes, not real-time performance metrics.
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PAS-C01 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 PAS-C01 exam.