CV0-004 Operations and Support Practice Question
A company wants to reduce costs by identifying underutilized EC2 instances. Which tool should they use to get rightsizing recommendations?
⚠ Common exam trap
CV0-004 often tests the confusion between cost management tools like Cost Explorer and rightsizing tools like Compute Optimizer; candidates may think Cost Explorer provides rightsizing, but it only shows costs.
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 Compute Optimizer
AWS Compute Optimizer is specifically designed to analyze resource utilization and provide rightsizing recommendations for EC2 instances, among other resources. It uses machine learning to identify underutilized instances and suggests optimal instance types, helping reduce costs.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS Cost Explorer
Why it's wrong here
Cost Explorer reports spend and usage trends, not instance-level rightsizing recommendations; it cannot compare provisioned capacity against actual utilisation. It is tempting because it visualises cost by service, and would be correct for analysing historical expenditure or forecasting spend, not for identifying underutilised EC2 instances.
- ✗
AWS Trusted Advisor
Why it's wrong here
Trusted Advisor surfaces cost-optimisation checks, but its EC2 recommendations are limited to idle and low-utilisation flags rather than granular rightsizing based on CloudWatch metrics. It is tempting as a broad advisory service, and would suit general account-wide best-practise reviews rather than detailed instance-level rightsizing.
- ✓
AWS Compute Optimizer
Why this is correct
AWS Compute Optimizer analyses CloudWatch metrics to generate rightsizing recommendations for EC2 instances, identifying over-provisioned or underutilised capacity. This directly satisfies the company's cost-reduction goal by surfacing specific instance-type downsizing opportunities, unlike tools that only report utilisation data without actionable sizing guidance.
- ✗
AWS Budgets
Why it's wrong here
AWS Budgets tracks spend against thresholds and fires alerts when costs or usage exceed defined limits; it performs no utilisation analysis of EC2 instances. It is tempting because it addresses cost reduction, and would be correct for monitoring expenditure or triggering notifications, not for generating rightsizing recommendations.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official CompTIA exam blueprint
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