- A
Amazon CloudWatch Alarms
CloudWatch Alarms monitor metrics and trigger actions based on thresholds.
- B
Amazon Inspector
Why wrong: Inspector assesses vulnerabilities.
- C
AWS Config
Why wrong: Config monitors resource configurations.
- D
AWS CloudTrail
Why wrong: CloudTrail logs API calls, not metrics.
Question 433 of 1,748
SCS-C02 Security Logging and Monitoring Practice Question
This SCS-C02 practice question tests your understanding of security logging and monitoring. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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 wants to monitor CPU utilization of their EC2 instances and receive an alert when utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used to set up this metric alarm?
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 Alarms
Amazon CloudWatch Alarms is the correct service because it is specifically designed to monitor CloudWatch metrics, such as EC2 CPU utilization, and trigger actions (e.g., SNS notifications) when a metric crosses a defined threshold for a specified number of consecutive evaluation periods. In this scenario, you would create a CloudWatch Alarm on the `CPUUtilization` metric with a threshold of 80%, set the period to 1 minute, and configure the alarm to evaluate 5 consecutive datapoints (periods) to meet the '5 consecutive minutes' requirement.
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.
- ✓
Amazon CloudWatch Alarms
Why this is correct
CloudWatch Alarms monitor metrics and trigger actions based on thresholds.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Amazon Inspector
Why it's wrong here
Inspector assesses vulnerabilities.
- ✗
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
Config monitors resource configurations.
- ✗
AWS CloudTrail
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail logs API calls, not metrics.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse AWS Config (configuration compliance) or CloudTrail (API auditing) with CloudWatch Alarms, because they all involve 'monitoring' in a broad sense, but only CloudWatch Alarms handles metric-based threshold alerts for performance data like CPU utilization.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, CloudWatch Alarms use a statistical evaluation of metric datapoints over a specified number of periods (e.g., 5 periods of 1 minute each) to determine the alarm state. The alarm transitions to ALARM state only when the metric breaches the threshold for the configured number of consecutive evaluation periods, which prevents flapping due to transient spikes. In a real-world scenario, you might combine this with an EC2 Auto Scaling lifecycle hook to automatically terminate and replace an unhealthy instance if the alarm persists, but the alarm itself is purely a CloudWatch feature.
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.
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Security Logging and Monitoring — study guide chapter
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SCS-C02 question test?
Security Logging and Monitoring — This question tests Security Logging and Monitoring — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Amazon CloudWatch Alarms — Amazon CloudWatch Alarms is the correct service because it is specifically designed to monitor CloudWatch metrics, such as EC2 CPU utilization, and trigger actions (e.g., SNS notifications) when a metric crosses a defined threshold for a specified number of consecutive evaluation periods. In this scenario, you would create a CloudWatch Alarm on the `CPUUtilization` metric with a threshold of 80%, set the period to 1 minute, and configure the alarm to evaluate 5 consecutive datapoints (periods) to meet the '5 consecutive minutes' requirement.
What should I do if I get this SCS-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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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026
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.
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