SC-100 Practice Question: Evaluate GRC and security operations strategies
This SC-100 practice question tests your understanding of evaluate grc and security operations strategies. 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 company is designing a security operations strategy. They want to use Microsoft Sentinel to detect and respond to threats across their hybrid environment. They need to ensure that logs from all sources are collected cost-effectively and that analysts can easily query data. Which data ingestion strategy should they recommend?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use Analytics logs for high-value security logs and Basic logs for verbose logs with low security value.
Option D is correct because it balances cost and query performance by routing high-value security logs (e.g., Windows Security Events, network logs) to the Analytics logs table for full KQL query capabilities and retention, while sending verbose, low-security-value logs (e.g., DNS debug, firewall flow logs) to the Basic logs table, which offers lower ingestion cost and limited query features (e.g., no KQL summarization). This tiered approach ensures analysts can efficiently hunt on critical data without incurring unnecessary costs for voluminous, less actionable logs.
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.
✗
Send all logs to the Basic logs table to reduce costs.
Why it's wrong here
Basic logs have limited query and alerting capabilities.
✗
Send only Windows Security Events to Sentinel.
Why it's wrong here
Ignores other critical logs like network, firewall, and cloud.
✗
Send all logs to the Analytics logs table for full query capabilities.
Why it's wrong here
Costly; verbose logs should be sent to Basic logs.
✓
Use Analytics logs for high-value security logs and Basic logs for verbose logs with low security value.
Why this is correct
Balances cost and functionality; Basic logs for low-value data, Analytics for actionable data.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates assume 'cost-effective' means using only the cheapest option (Basic logs) or only the most capable option (Analytics logs), failing to recognize that Microsoft Sentinel’s tiered ingestion model is designed specifically to optimize cost versus query capability by separating high-value and low-value log sources.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, Basic logs are stored in a separate, cheaper data tier that uses a different indexing scheme—they are not indexed for full KQL analytics and cannot be used in scheduled analytics rules or hunting queries that require aggregation. The Analytics logs table supports all KQL operators, including time-series analysis and join operations, and is required for detection rules like NRT (near-real-time) and scheduled alerts. In a real-world scenario, a SOC might send 10 TB/day of DNS debug logs to Basic logs (costing ~$0.50/GB) and 500 GB/day of Windows Security Events to Analytics logs (costing ~$2.30/GB), saving over $18,000/month while retaining full hunting capability on critical data.
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 startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this SC-100 question in full detail.
Evaluate GRC and security operations strategies — This question tests Evaluate GRC and security operations strategies — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Use Analytics logs for high-value security logs and Basic logs for verbose logs with low security value. — Option D is correct because it balances cost and query performance by routing high-value security logs (e.g., Windows Security Events, network logs) to the Analytics logs table for full KQL query capabilities and retention, while sending verbose, low-security-value logs (e.g., DNS debug, firewall flow logs) to the Basic logs table, which offers lower ingestion cost and limited query features (e.g., no KQL summarization). This tiered approach ensures analysts can efficiently hunt on critical data without incurring unnecessary costs for voluminous, less actionable logs.
What should I do if I get this SC-100 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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