Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company uses AWS CloudTrail to record all API activity. The SysOps administrator needs to be alerted in real time when an IAM user creates a new access key. Which combination of AWS services should be used to create this alert?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Distractor review
CloudTrail + Amazon S3 + Amazon SNS
Storing CloudTrail logs in S3 does not provide real-time alerting; you would need to monitor S3 for new objects, which adds complexity and delay.
B
Distractor review
CloudTrail + Amazon CloudWatch Logs + Amazon SNS
You can send CloudTrail logs to CloudWatch Logs and create a metric filter to count specific events, then set an alarm on that metric to trigger SNS. This works but requires more steps than using EventBridge.
C
Distractor review
CloudTrail + AWS Config + Amazon SNS
AWS Config is used for configuration compliance and resource change tracking, not for real-time API event alerting.
D
Best answer
CloudTrail + Amazon EventBridge + Amazon SNS
EventBridge can directly consume CloudTrail events and apply rules to match specific API actions, triggering SNS notifications with low latency.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
Related practice questions
Related SOA-C02 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A company uses Amazon CloudFront to deliver content to a global audience. The origin is an Application Load Balancer in us-east-1. The SysOps administrator wants to reduce costs by minimizing the number of requests that reach the origin server. Which action should the administrator take?
Question 2
A company runs a batch processing application on Amazon EC2 that runs for 2 hours every night. The workload can tolerate interruptions. Which EC2 purchasing option provides the lowest cost for this use case?
Question 3
A SysOps administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an Amazon RDS DB instance and receive an alarm when CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used to create this alarm?
Question 4
A company runs a critical web application on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application uses session stickiness (sticky sessions) to maintain user sessions. The SysOps administrator notices that when instances are replaced during a scale-in or failure event, users lose their session data. The administrator needs to preserve session data across instance failures without losing stickiness benefits. What should the administrator do?
Question 5
A company runs a production web application on a single Amazon EC2 instance. The application experiences a predictable and steady workload 24/7. The SysOps administrator wants to minimize compute costs for this instance while ensuring it remains available during the expected workload. Which EC2 purchasing option should the administrator use?
Question 6
A company has a VPC with public and private subnets. The private subnets host application servers that need to make outbound HTTPS connections to the internet. The SysOps administrator must implement a solution that provides outbound internet connectivity while preventing inbound connections from the internet. Additionally, the solution must allow the company to control which domains the application servers can access. Which solution should the administrator implement?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SOA-C02 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: CloudTrail + Amazon EventBridge + Amazon SNS — CloudTrail delivers events to Amazon EventBridge (default event bus). EventBridge can use event patterns to match specific API calls (e.g., CreateAccessKey) and route them to an Amazon SNS topic for notification. While CloudWatch Logs with metric filters can also be used, EventBridge is the preferred and more straightforward service for real-time event-driven alerting on CloudTrail events.
What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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