- A
Place the workload in a dedicated account, project, or subscription with restricted cross-account access.
A dedicated account, project, or subscription provides stronger logical isolation than placing the workload in a shared environment. Restricting cross-account access reduces accidental or unauthorized sharing and makes governance easier. This is a common cloud architecture pattern for regulated workloads that need separation without the overhead of managing physical infrastructure.
- B
Enable cloud control-plane logging and retain the logs centrally.
Control-plane logging creates an audit trail for administrative actions such as policy changes, role assignments, and resource modifications. Central retention helps security teams investigate events, correlate activity, and preserve evidence. For a regulated workload, this visibility is essential because it documents who changed the cloud environment and when.
- C
Deploy the workload in a shared public subnet to simplify routing between tenants.
Why wrong: A shared public subnet increases exposure and does not provide strong tenant isolation. It may simplify some network paths, but it undermines the requirement for separation between workloads. Regulated data should be placed in a more controlled network boundary, not in a shared public segment.
- D
Assume the cloud provider will record every guest operating system event automatically.
Why wrong: Cloud providers usually log the platform and control plane, but guest operating system logging remains the customer's responsibility. Assuming the provider captures everything can leave major visibility gaps. The organization still needs to configure OS-level logs and application logs where appropriate.
- E
Disable logging to reduce storage costs because the provider already has all necessary records.
Why wrong: Disabling logs removes the evidence needed for investigations and compliance. Cost savings do not outweigh the loss of auditability, especially for a regulated workload. The provider does not automatically replace customer logging needs, and control-plane visibility is often critical for incident response and governance.
Quick Answer
The correct answer is to place the workload in a dedicated account, project, or subscription with restricted cross-account access, and to enable cloud control-plane logging with centralized retention. This combination delivers the strongest practical tenant isolation without physical servers by leveraging the provider’s native resource boundaries and IAM policies, while the centralized audit logs capture every change made to the cloud environment, satisfying the compliance requirement for a complete audit trail. On the Security+ SY0-701 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of logical isolation strategies versus network-only controls, with a common trap being to select a VPN or VPC peering instead of a dedicated account. Remember the mnemonic “Dedicated Account, Central Logs” to link the two essential choices for both isolation and accountability.
SY0-701 Security Architecture Practice Question
This SY0-701 practice question tests your understanding of security architecture. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. 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 regulated analytics workload is moving to a public cloud. The business wants the strongest practical tenant isolation without managing physical servers, and it also needs an audit trail for changes made to the cloud environment. Which two design choices best meet those requirements? Select two.
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue:
"best"Why it matters: Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
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
Place the workload in a dedicated account, project, or subscription with restricted cross-account access.
Option A is correct because placing the workload in a dedicated account, project, or subscription with restricted cross-account access provides strong logical isolation at the cloud provider's control plane. This approach meets the requirement for tenant isolation without managing physical servers, as it leverages the provider's built-in resource boundaries and IAM policies to prevent unauthorized access between tenants.
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.
- ✓
Place the workload in a dedicated account, project, or subscription with restricted cross-account access.
Why this is correct
A dedicated account, project, or subscription provides stronger logical isolation than placing the workload in a shared environment. Restricting cross-account access reduces accidental or unauthorized sharing and makes governance easier. This is a common cloud architecture pattern for regulated workloads that need separation without the overhead of managing physical infrastructure.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "best" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✓
Enable cloud control-plane logging and retain the logs centrally.
Why this is correct
Control-plane logging creates an audit trail for administrative actions such as policy changes, role assignments, and resource modifications. Central retention helps security teams investigate events, correlate activity, and preserve evidence. For a regulated workload, this visibility is essential because it documents who changed the cloud environment and when.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "best" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Deploy the workload in a shared public subnet to simplify routing between tenants.
Why it's wrong here
A shared public subnet increases exposure and does not provide strong tenant isolation. It may simplify some network paths, but it undermines the requirement for separation between workloads. Regulated data should be placed in a more controlled network boundary, not in a shared public segment.
- ✗
Assume the cloud provider will record every guest operating system event automatically.
Why it's wrong here
Cloud providers usually log the platform and control plane, but guest operating system logging remains the customer's responsibility. Assuming the provider captures everything can leave major visibility gaps. The organization still needs to configure OS-level logs and application logs where appropriate.
- ✗
Disable logging to reduce storage costs because the provider already has all necessary records.
Why it's wrong here
Disabling logs removes the evidence needed for investigations and compliance. Cost savings do not outweigh the loss of auditability, especially for a regulated workload. The provider does not automatically replace customer logging needs, and control-plane visibility is often critical for incident response and governance.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse network-level isolation (like subnets) with tenant isolation at the control plane, or assume cloud providers automatically handle guest OS auditing, leading them to select C or D instead of the correct combination of A and B.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, dedicated accounts or subscriptions create a hard boundary at the cloud provider's resource hierarchy, often enforced by separate billing, separate service quotas, and strict IAM trust policies. For audit trails, enabling control-plane logging (e.g., AWS CloudTrail, Azure Activity Log, GCP Audit Logs) captures all API calls that modify resources, which is essential for compliance in regulated workloads. A real-world scenario is a healthcare analytics workload in a dedicated AWS account with SCPs limiting cross-account access, combined with CloudTrail logs shipped to a centralized S3 bucket for immutable retention.
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 security analyst at a medium-sized enterprise encounters this scenario during an investigation or architecture review. The correct answer reflects best practice for the specific threat or control described. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Security exam questions test whether you can match controls to threats in context — not just recall definitions.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SY0-701 question test?
Security Architecture — This question tests Security Architecture — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Place the workload in a dedicated account, project, or subscription with restricted cross-account access. — Option A is correct because placing the workload in a dedicated account, project, or subscription with restricted cross-account access provides strong logical isolation at the cloud provider's control plane. This approach meets the requirement for tenant isolation without managing physical servers, as it leverages the provider's built-in resource boundaries and IAM policies to prevent unauthorized access between tenants.
What should I do if I get this SY0-701 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "best". Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
2 more ways this is tested on SY0-701
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A regulated analytics workload must run in the cloud with the strongest isolation from other customers, but the company does not want to manage its own physical server room. Which placement is most appropriate?
medium- A.A public subnet with an internet gateway so the workload can be reached directly.
- B.A shared-tenancy virtual machine in the provider's default compute pool.
- ✓ C.A dedicated host or equivalent single-tenant compute placement in the provider's environment.
- D.A serverless function because it removes all underlying infrastructure concerns.
Why C: Option C is correct because a dedicated host or single-tenant compute placement ensures that the physical server is not shared with any other customer, providing the strongest isolation required for regulated workloads. This model meets the compliance need for physical separation while still being a cloud service, so the company avoids managing its own server room.
Variation 2. A regulated analytics workload must run in a public cloud with the strongest practical tenant isolation while avoiding management of physical servers. The workload should also remain off the public internet. Which two deployment choices best fit? Select two.
medium- ✓ A.Run the workload on a dedicated host or dedicated instance.
- ✓ B.Place the workload in a private subnet without a public IP address.
- C.Use shared tenancy with security groups only.
- D.Assign an elastic IP so administrators can reach the workload directly from anywhere.
- E.Expose the workload through a public load balancer to simplify connectivity.
Why A: A dedicated host or dedicated instance provides the strongest practical tenant isolation in a public cloud by ensuring that the underlying physical server is not shared with any other customer. This meets the regulatory requirement for strong isolation while avoiding the need to manage physical servers, as the cloud provider still handles hardware maintenance. The dedicated instance model (e.g., AWS Dedicated Instances) offers hardware-level isolation at the instance level, while a dedicated host gives you visibility and control over the physical server, both without requiring you to manage the server itself.
Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
This SY0-701 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA 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 SY0-701 exam.
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