SCS-C02 Security Logging and Monitoring Practice Question
A security engineer is designing a centralized logging solution for 10 AWS accounts. Which THREE AWS services should be used to aggregate, store, and analyze logs?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates often select Amazon Kinesis Data Streams or Amazon CloudWatch Logs as the primary aggregation and storage service, overlooking that AWS Organizations is required to centrally manage log delivery from multiple accounts, and that S3 plus Athena provides the most scalable and cost-effective solution for long-term storage and ad-hoc analysis.
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
✓
AWS Organizations
AWS Organizations is correct because it provides a centralized management structure for multiple AWS accounts, enabling you to automatically enforce policies and aggregate logs from all member accounts into a central S3 bucket. Amazon S3 is the recommended service for storing large volumes of logs durably and cost-effectively. Amazon Athena enables you to run ad-hoc SQL queries directly on the logs stored in S3, providing a serverless analytics solution for log analysis without the need for complex ETL or infrastructure management. Together, these three services form a complete solution: Organizations for aggregation, S3 for storage, and Athena for analysis.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
Why it's wrong here
Kinesis is for real-time streaming, not long-term storage.
- ✓
AWS Organizations
Why this is correct
Organizations helps manage multiple accounts centrally.
- ✓
Amazon Athena
Why this is correct
Athena allows SQL queries on data in S3.
- ✗
Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch Logs is for real-time monitoring, not long-term analysis.
- ✓
Amazon S3
Why this is correct
S3 provides durable, cost-effective storage.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SCS-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 SCS-C02 exam.