PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
An SAP administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an EC2 instance running SAP HANA. Which AWS service should be used to set 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 (Option D) is the correct answer because it is the AWS monitoring service that can create alarms on EC2 metrics such as CPUUtilization. When the CPU utilization exceeds a threshold (e.g., 90%) for a specified duration (e.g., 5 minutes), CloudWatch can trigger an alarm and notify via SNS. Option A (AWS CloudTrail) is incorrect because it records API activity, not performance metrics. Option B (AWS Trusted Advisor) is incorrect because it provides best practice recommendations, not real-time monitoring or alarms. Option C (AWS Config) is incorrect because it tracks resource configuration changes, not operational metrics.
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 records API calls, not resource metrics.
- ✗
AWS Trusted Advisor
Why it's wrong here
Trusted Advisor provides best practice checks, not metric alarms.
- ✗
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
Config evaluates resource configurations but does not monitor utilization.
- ✓
Amazon CloudWatch
Why this is correct
CloudWatch monitors metrics and can trigger alarms.
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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.