SOA-C02 Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation Practice Question

Network Topology

Refer to the exhibit. A SysOps administrator runs the 'list-metrics' command for CPUUtilization. Based on the output, what can the administrator conclude?

⚠ Common exam trap

It's easy for candidates to assume 'list-metrics' shows only currently active resources or that it implies alarm configurations, when in fact it only reflects historical metric reporting and has no relation to current state or alarms.

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

✓

There are two EC2 instances that have reported CPUUtilization metrics at some point.

The 'list-metrics' output shows two distinct dimensions (i-12345678 and i-87654321) for the CPUUtilization metric, indicating that two EC2 instances have reported this metric at some point. Option B is correct because the presence of two unique instance IDs in the metric data confirms that CPUUtilization has been recorded for both instances, regardless of whether they are currently active or have alarms configured.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

✗
The CPUUtilization metric is only available for EC2 instances.
Why it's wrong here
CPUUtilization is not exclusive to EC2; it is also published by other AWS services such as Amazon ECS, Amazon ElastiCache, and Amazon Redshift, each within their own CloudWatch namespace. In addition, custom metrics published by your own applications can use the name CPUUtilization. The exhibit shows the AWS/EC2 namespace, but that does not mean the metric is only available for EC2 instances, so the statement is false.
✓
There are two EC2 instances that have reported CPUUtilization metrics at some point.
Why this is correct
list-metrics returns a metadata list of metric definitions that have been registered with CloudWatch when data points were published. The output shows two distinct InstanceId dimension values, which means CloudWatch has received CPUUtilization data from two separate EC2 instances at some point in time. This is true regardless of whether those instances are currently sending new data, as CloudWatch retains the metric definitions for a long period after the last publication.
✗
Both instances are actively publishing CPUUtilization metrics.
Why it's wrong here
Although two EC2 instances appear in the list-metrics output, that command provides no indication of current publishing activity. A metric remains listed as long as it exists in CloudWatch, even if the instance has been stopped, terminated, or has not sent a recent data point. To determine whether an instance is actively publishing CPUUtilization, you would need to call GetMetricStatistics or GetMetricData for a recent time window, so the claim that both are actively publishing cannot be concluded.
✗
An alarm has been set on both instances for CPUUtilization.
Why it's wrong here
The list-metrics command is a metadata operation that lists metric names and dimensions; it does not return any information about CloudWatch alarms. Alarms are separate resources that reference metrics but are not themselves metrics, so their existence must be checked with DescribeAlarms or by describing the alarm resource directly. The output shown in the exhibit only confirms which metrics have been published, not that any alarm was created on those metrics.

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SOA-C02 Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation Practice Question

Why each option matters

Option-by-option breakdown

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