PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
An SAP system administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an EC2 instance running SAP NetWeaver and set an alarm when it exceeds 90% for 5 minutes. Which AWS service should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse AWS CloudTrail (auditing) or AWS Config (compliance) with monitoring services, but only CloudWatch provides the metric collection and alarm functionality needed for real-time performance thresholds.
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 because it provides detailed monitoring of EC2 instances, including CPU utilization metrics, and allows you to set CloudWatch Alarms that trigger when a metric exceeds a specified threshold (e.g., 90%) for a given number of consecutive evaluation periods (e.g., 5 minutes). This is the native AWS service designed for performance monitoring and alerting.
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 activity, not CPU utilization.
- ✓
Amazon CloudWatch
Why this is correct
CloudWatch monitors EC2 metrics and can trigger SNS notifications when thresholds are breached.
- ✗
AWS Trusted Advisor
Why it's wrong here
Trusted Advisor provides recommendations, not real-time monitoring.
- ✗
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
Config evaluates resource configurations, not performance metrics.
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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.