Quick Answer
The answer is Amazon CloudWatch Alarms, as this is the AWS service specifically designed to monitor metrics like EC2 CPU utilization and trigger actions when thresholds are breached. This is correct because a CloudWatch alarm evaluates a metric over a specified number of consecutive periods—here, you set the statistic to ‘Average’, the threshold to 90%, and configure both the evaluation periods and datapoints to alarm to 5 with a 1-minute period, ensuring the alarm fires only after five straight minutes of high utilization. On the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate SOA-C02 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of how to translate a time-based condition into CloudWatch alarm parameters, a common trap being confusion between evaluation periods and datapoints to alarm—they must match for consecutive monitoring. A helpful memory tip: think “5 for 5”—five datapoints over five evaluation periods to catch a steady CPU spike.
This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of monitoring, logging, and remediation. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 SysOps administrator needs to send a notification when an EC2 instance's CPU utilization exceeds 90% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used to create the alarm?
AWS Config
Why wrong: AWS Config evaluates resource configurations, not metric thresholds.
Amazon CloudWatch Alarms
CloudWatch Alarms are used to monitor metrics and trigger actions.
AWS Trusted Advisor
Why wrong: Trusted Advisor provides optimization checks, not metric monitoring.
Amazon EventBridge
Why wrong: EventBridge is for event-driven patterns, not direct metric alarms.
Answer choices
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 are the correct service because they allow you to monitor a specific metric (e.g., EC2 CPUUtilization) and trigger an action when the metric crosses a defined threshold for a specified number of consecutive evaluation periods. In this case, you can create a CloudWatch alarm with a statistic of 'Average', a threshold of 90%, and set the 'Datapoints to Alarm' and 'Evaluation Periods' to 5 (with a period of 1 minute) to achieve the '5 consecutive minutes' requirement. The alarm can then send a notification via Amazon SNS.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config evaluates resource configurations, not metric thresholds.
Amazon CloudWatch Alarms
Why this is correct
CloudWatch Alarms are used to monitor metrics and trigger actions.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
AWS Trusted Advisor
Why it's wrong here
Trusted Advisor provides optimization checks, not metric monitoring.
Amazon EventBridge
Why it's wrong here
EventBridge is for event-driven patterns, not direct metric alarms.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Amazon EventBridge with CloudWatch Alarms, thinking EventBridge can directly evaluate metric thresholds, but EventBridge requires a CloudWatch Alarm to generate the event, and it cannot perform the metric evaluation itself.
Detailed technical explanation
Under the hood, CloudWatch Alarms use a state machine that transitions between OK, ALARM, and INSUFFICIENT_DATA states based on the number of consecutive evaluation periods (datapoints) that breach the threshold. For this scenario, you must set the 'Period' to 60 seconds, 'Evaluation Periods' to 5, and 'Datapoints to Alarm' to 5, ensuring that the alarm only triggers after five consecutive 1-minute datapoints exceed 90% CPU utilization, which prevents false alarms from transient spikes. A real-world consideration is that if the EC2 instance is in a burstable performance family (e.g., t3.micro), high CPU utilization for 5 minutes could deplete CPU credits, making this alarm critical for triggering scaling or notification actions.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
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
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FAQ
Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation — This question tests Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Amazon CloudWatch Alarms — Amazon CloudWatch Alarms are the correct service because they allow you to monitor a specific metric (e.g., EC2 CPUUtilization) and trigger an action when the metric crosses a defined threshold for a specified number of consecutive evaluation periods. In this case, you can create a CloudWatch alarm with a statistic of 'Average', a threshold of 90%, and set the 'Datapoints to Alarm' and 'Evaluation Periods' to 5 (with a period of 1 minute) to achieve the '5 consecutive minutes' requirement. The alarm can then send a notification via Amazon SNS.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
This SOA-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 SOA-C02 exam.
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