Amazon AWS Certified DevOps Engineer — Professional DOP-C02 Exam Dumps and Practice Test Questions Set 10 Q136-150
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Question 136
A company wants to deploy a serverless application that processes sensitive customer data. They need to ensure that environment variables are encrypted, unauthorized code changes are prevented, and every action is auditable. Which combination of AWS services should they implement?
A) AWS Config + Lambda + KMS
B) Amazon S3 + Athena
C) CloudFront + WAF
D) QuickSight + CloudTrail
Answer: A) AWS Config + Lambda + KMS
Explanation:
AWS Config provides continuous monitoring and assessment of AWS resources against predefined compliance rules. For serverless applications running on AWS Lambda, Config ensures that environment variables are encrypted using AWS Key Management Service (KMS). Any deviation from this policy is flagged as noncompliant, and the details are logged, creating a complete audit trail. This continuous monitoring ensures that encryption policies are consistently enforced, which is critical when handling sensitive customer data. Config also maintains historical configuration records, enabling organizations to review and verify compliance over time. This is essential for meeting regulatory requirements, such as PCI DSS or GDPR, which mandate encryption and auditing of sensitive information.
AWS Key Management Service (KMS) provides centralized key management and encryption capabilities. Lambda environment variables containing sensitive customer information can be encrypted with KMS-managed keys. KMS ensures that only authorized principals can decrypt these variables, maintaining the confidentiality and integrity of the data. All key usage events are logged in CloudTrail, providing a detailed audit trail of encryption and decryption activities. KMS also supports automated key rotation, which minimizes the risk of key compromise and improves the overall security posture of the application. This encryption mechanism ensures that sensitive data remains protected at rest.
Lambda functions themselves provide role-based access control and code integrity enforcement. By combining Lambda with Config and KMS, organizations create a multi-layered security framework. Config continuously evaluates compliance, KMS enforces encryption of sensitive data, and Lambda roles control access to the code, preventing unauthorized modifications. Automated remediation can be implemented using EventBridge or Systems Manager to ensure that any noncompliant functions are corrected automatically, such as re-encrypting variables or disabling unauthorized code changes. This proactive approach ensures operational security and compliance without manual intervention.
Amazon S3 and Athena provide storage and analytics capabilities. While they are useful for storing logs or querying structured data, they do not enforce encryption on Lambda environment variables, prevent unauthorized code changes, or provide continuous compliance monitoring. Therefore, this combination is insufficient for protecting sensitive customer data in serverless applications.
CloudFront with WAF provides content delivery acceleration and protection against common web attacks. While these services enhance web application security, they do not enforce Lambda encryption, monitor compliance, or prevent unauthorized code modifications. They are therefore not suitable for meeting the stated requirements.
QuickSight combined with CloudTrail allows for visualization and auditing of AWS resource activity. CloudTrail logs API events, and QuickSight can analyze trends and generate reports. However, this combination does not proactively enforce encryption, prevent unauthorized code changes, or provide real-time compliance monitoring. It is primarily a post-event auditing tool rather than a preventive solution.
The combination of AWS Config, Lambda, and KMS provides a robust, fully managed solution to secure serverless applications. Environment variables are encrypted, code integrity is maintained, and a complete audit trail is generated. This approach ensures regulatory compliance, operational security, and protection of sensitive customer data. By integrating monitoring, encryption, and access controls, organizations can maintain continuous visibility, proactively enforce security policies, and respond rapidly to potential threats. It represents a multi-layered security and compliance framework, making it the correct solution.
Question 137
A company runs containerized applications on Amazon ECS with Fargate. They want to automatically detect vulnerabilities in container images before deployment and prevent images with critical issues from reaching production. Which combination of AWS services achieves this goal?
A) Amazon ECR image scanning + AWS CodePipeline
B) AWS Config + Lambda
C) Amazon S3 + Athena
D) AWS CloudTrail + CloudWatch
Answer: A) Amazon ECR image scanning + AWS CodePipeline
Explanation:
Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) provides a fully managed container image repository with integrated vulnerability scanning powered by Amazon Inspector. ECR image scanning examines all layers of a container image to detect known security vulnerabilities, outdated packages, and misconfigurations. Scans produce detailed reports listing vulnerabilities, severity levels, affected packages, and recommended fixes. This ensures that insecure images are identified before deployment, reducing the risk of introducing vulnerabilities into production workloads. Automatic image scanning can be triggered upon image push to the registry, enabling early detection in the software development lifecycle.
AWS CodePipeline is a fully managed continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) service that automates the build, test, and deployment process. Integrating ECR image scanning with CodePipeline allows organizations to enforce security policies by blocking deployment of images with critical or high-severity vulnerabilities. The pipeline can automatically evaluate scan results and prevent noncompliant images from reaching production. Additionally, CodePipeline can trigger notifications via SNS or other channels, allowing teams to remediate issues promptly. This ensures a proactive approach to container security.
By combining ECR image scanning and CodePipeline, organizations implement a secure, automated workflow. Developers push images to ECR, which are scanned for vulnerabilities. CodePipeline evaluates the scan results, and only images that meet security policies are deployed to ECS Fargate. This reduces the risk of running insecure containers, minimizes operational overhead, and enforces security compliance without manual intervention. Notifications and automated remediation further enhance security posture.
AWS Config and Lambda primarily focus on configuration compliance and automated remediation of misconfigured resources. While useful for infrastructure compliance, they do not perform container image vulnerability scanning or prevent deployment of insecure images, making them unsuitable for this requirement.
Amazon S3 and Athena allow for storage and querying of structured data, such as container logs or metadata. While this enables retrospective analysis, it does not provide real-time scanning or automated deployment blocking, making it insufficient for proactive security enforcement in CI/CD pipelines.
AWS CloudTrail and CloudWatch provide auditing and monitoring capabilities. CloudTrail logs API activity, and CloudWatch monitors metrics and generates alarms. While these services offer visibility into events and operational health, they do not perform vulnerability scanning of container images or enforce deployment policies.
The combination of Amazon ECR image scanning with AWS CodePipeline ensures that container images are automatically scanned, deployment of vulnerable images is blocked, and development teams are alerted to critical issues. This fully managed, automated approach integrates security into the CI/CD process, minimizes risk, ensures compliance, and maintains production environment integrity. It represents a proactive, end-to-end container security solution, making it the correct choice.
Question 138
A global web application needs to route traffic to the AWS region with the lowest latency, automatically fail over in case of regional failure, and provide real-time visibility into endpoint performance. Which AWS service combination is most suitable?
A) Route 53 latency-based routing + health checks + CloudWatch
B) CloudFront + S3
C) Direct Connect + VPC Peering
D) Lambda + DynamoDB
Answer: A) Route 53 latency-based routing + health checks + CloudWatch
Explanation:
Amazon Route 53 provides latency-based routing to direct user requests to the AWS region with the lowest network latency from the user’s location. Multiple endpoints across regions can be configured, and Route 53 evaluates the origin of each request to determine the optimal routing path. This ensures minimal latency and optimal performance for global users. Latency-based routing automatically adapts to user locations and changing network conditions, delivering a better experience for distributed user bases.
Health checks integrated with Route 53 continuously monitor the availability and responsiveness of endpoints. If an endpoint fails or becomes degraded, Route 53 automatically reroutes traffic to a healthy endpoint. This failover mechanism ensures high availability, reducing the risk of downtime during regional outages. Health checks can monitor HTTP/S responses, TCP connections, or custom application-level indicators, providing granular control over failover conditions. Automated failover removes the need for manual intervention and ensures continuity of service.
CloudWatch complements Route 53 by providing real-time monitoring and visibility into endpoint performance. Metrics such as latency, error rates, request counts, and throughput are captured and displayed in dashboards. CloudWatch alarms notify operations teams when endpoints become unhealthy or exhibit unusual behavior. Integration with EventBridge enables automated operational workflows, such as scaling resources, sending notifications, or triggering remediation actions. Historical CloudWatch metrics allow trend analysis and proactive optimization, helping teams predict capacity requirements and identify recurring performance issues.
CloudFront and S3 provide content acceleration and storage capabilities. While CloudFront improves static content delivery through edge caching, it does not perform latency-based routing or automated failover for dynamic traffic. S3 is a storage service and does not provide routing or monitoring capabilities, making them unsuitable for the requirements described.
Direct Connect with VPC Peering enhances network connectivity between on-premises data centers and AWS VPCs or between VPCs but does not provide global traffic routing, latency-based optimization, or automated failover.
Lambda combined with DynamoDB provides serverless compute and storage but does not perform latency-based routing, endpoint monitoring, or failover for globally distributed applications.
By combining Route 53 latency-based routing, health checks, and CloudWatch, organizations can ensure that users are directed to the fastest healthy endpoint, endpoints are continuously monitored, and operational teams have real-time visibility into performance. This fully managed solution delivers low latency, high availability, and observability for global web applications, making it the correct solution.
Question 139
A company uses AWS Lambda to process sensitive financial transactions. They want to enforce encryption for environment variables, prevent unauthorized code changes, and maintain an auditable compliance trail. Which combination of AWS services should they implement?
A) AWS Config + Lambda + KMS
B) Amazon S3 + Athena
C) CloudFront + WAF
D) QuickSight + CloudTrail
Answer: A) AWS Config + Lambda + KMS
Explanation:
AWS Config provides continuous monitoring and evaluation of AWS resources against predefined compliance rules. For Lambda functions handling sensitive financial transactions, Config ensures that environment variables are encrypted using AWS Key Management Service (KMS). If a function is noncompliant, Config flags it and logs details, creating a comprehensive audit trail. Continuous monitoring guarantees that security policies are enforced and that regulatory compliance is maintained. Config retains historical configuration records, enabling organizations to verify compliance over time and conduct audits when required. This is particularly critical for financial applications that must adhere to regulations such as PCI DSS or SOC 2.
AWS Key Management Service (KMS) offers centralized key creation, management, and encryption. Lambda environment variables containing sensitive information can be encrypted with KMS-managed keys. KMS ensures that only authorized principals can decrypt these variables, preserving confidentiality and integrity. KMS logs all key usage in CloudTrail, providing a detailed record of decryption events and access patterns. This audit trail is essential for tracking compliance and responding to security incidents. KMS also supports automatic key rotation, minimizing the risk of key compromise and strengthening overall security posture.
Lambda functions themselves provide role-based access control, which restricts unauthorized access and modifications to function code. Combining Lambda with Config and KMS creates a multi-layered security approach. Config continuously monitors compliance, KMS enforces encryption, and Lambda roles prevent unauthorized changes. Automated remediation can be triggered using EventBridge or Systems Manager to correct noncompliant functions, such as re-encrypting environment variables or disabling unauthorized changes. This ensures continuous protection without manual intervention.
Amazon S3 combined with Athena provides storage and querying capabilities. While these services are useful for storing logs or querying structured data, they do not enforce encryption for Lambda environment variables, prevent unauthorized code changes, or maintain continuous compliance monitoring.
CloudFront with WAF provides web application security and content delivery acceleration. Although WAF protects against web-based attacks, it does not enforce Lambda encryption, prevent unauthorized code changes, or maintain an auditable trail for sensitive data.
QuickSight, combined with CloudTrail, enables visualization and auditing of AWS activity. CloudTrail logs API events, and QuickSight can generate dashboards and reports. However, this combination does not actively enforce encryption, prevent unauthorized modifications, or provide real-time compliance monitoring.
By combining AWS Config, Lambda, and KMS, organizations achieve a robust, fully managed solution for securing serverless financial workloads. Environment variables are encrypted, code integrity is maintained, and a comprehensive audit trail is preserved. This integrated approach ensures regulatory compliance, operational security, and protection of sensitive financial transactions. Multi-layered enforcement of policies and automated remediation reduce risk, enhance governance, and provide continuous operational visibility, making this the correct solution.
Question 140
A company runs containerized applications on Amazon ECS with Fargate. They want to automatically detect vulnerabilities in container images before deployment and prevent noncompliant images from reaching production. Which combination of AWS services provides this functionality?
A) Amazon ECR image scanning + AWS CodePipeline
B) AWS Config + Lambda
C) Amazon S3 + Athena
D) AWS CloudTrail + CloudWatch
Answer: A) Amazon ECR image scanning + AWS CodePipeline
Explanation:
Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) provides a fully managed container registry with integrated vulnerability scanning using Amazon Inspector. ECR image scanning analyzes all layers of container images to detect vulnerabilities, outdated packages, misconfigurations, and known CVEs. Scan results include severity levels, affected components, and remediation recommendations. Automatic scanning upon image push ensures that potential security issues are detected early in the development lifecycle, before deployment to ECS Fargate. This proactive approach reduces risk and ensures secure container operations.
AWS CodePipeline is a fully managed continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) service. By integrating ECR image scanning into CodePipeline, organizations can enforce deployment policies. The pipeline evaluates scan results, and images that exceed defined severity thresholds, such as critical or high-risk vulnerabilities, are blocked from deployment. This prevents insecure or noncompliant images from reaching production. Notifications can be sent through SNS or other mechanisms to alert developers, enabling immediate remediation.
This combination enables an automated, end-to-end workflow for container security. Developers push images to ECR, the pipeline builds and tests them, ECR scans the images, and deployment is automatically gated based on scan results. The workflow minimizes manual intervention, maintains compliance with security policies, and reduces the risk of deploying vulnerable containers. Automated remediation ensures that security issues are addressed promptly.
AWS Config and Lambda primarily handle configuration compliance and remediation. Config monitors resource settings for compliance, and Lambda can automate corrective actions. However, they do not scan container images or enforce CI/CD deployment policies, making them unsuitable for container vulnerability management.
Amazon S3 and Athena provide storage and querying capabilities. While container metadata or logs can be stored in S3 and queried with Athena, this is not a proactive security solution. Retrospective analysis does not prevent the deployment of vulnerable images.
AWS CloudTrail and CloudWatch provide auditing and monitoring. CloudTrail logs API calls, and CloudWatch monitors metrics and triggers alarms. These services offer operational visibility but do not perform vulnerability scanning or prevent the deployment of noncompliant images.
The combination of ECR image scanning with CodePipeline ensures that container images are automatically scanned, insecure images are blocked, and development teams receive actionable information. This integration provides a secure, automated, and fully managed approach to container security, enforcing policies, reducing risk, and maintaining production integrity, making it the correct solution.
Question 141
A global web application requires routing users to the AWS region with the lowest latency, automatic failover for unhealthy regions, and real-time monitoring of endpoint performance. Which AWS service combination is most appropriate?
A) Route 53 latency-based routing + health checks + CloudWatch
B) CloudFront + S3
C) Direct Connect + VPC Peering
D) Lambda + DynamoDB
Answer: A) Route 53 latency-based routing + health checks + CloudWatch
Explanation:
Amazon Route 53 provides latency-based routing, directing users to the AWS region that offers the lowest network latency. Multiple endpoints can be configured across regions, and Route 53 evaluates the origin of each request to determine the optimal endpoint. This ensures users experience minimal latency and improved application performance. Latency-based routing automatically adapts to changing network conditions and user locations, optimizing the user experience for globally distributed applications.
Health checks integrated with Route 53 continuously monitor endpoint availability and responsiveness. If an endpoint fails or experiences degraded performance, Route 53 automatically routes traffic to a healthy endpoint. This automated failover mechanism ensures high availability and reduces downtime without manual intervention. Health checks can monitor HTTP/S responses, TCP ports, or application-specific indicators, providing granular control over failover behavior. Automated failover is critical for maintaining service continuity in case of regional outages.
CloudWatch provides real-time monitoring of endpoints and operational metrics. Metrics such as latency, error rates, request counts, and throughput are collected and visualized in dashboards. CloudWatch alarms notify operations teams when endpoints are unhealthy or exhibit unusual patterns. Integration with EventBridge enables automated operational responses, such as scaling resources, triggering remediation actions, or sending alerts. Historical CloudWatch data allows teams to analyze trends, optimize performance, and proactively manage capacity.
CloudFront with S3 accelerates static content delivery via edge caching but does not provide DNS-based routing or automated failover for dynamic endpoints. While it improves performance for static assets, it does not monitor endpoint health or route API requests globally.
Direct Connect and VPC Peering improve network connectivity but do not perform global traffic routing, latency-based optimization, or automatic failover.
Lambda with DynamoDB provides serverless compute and storage capabilities, but does not perform routing, failover, or endpoint monitoring for globally distributed users.
Combining Route 53 latency-based routing, health checks, and CloudWatch ensures users are routed to the fastest healthy endpoint, endpoints are continuously monitored, and operational teams have real-time visibility. This integrated solution provides low latency, high availability, and operational observability for global web applications, making it the correct solution.
Question 142
A company wants to automatically scale ECS services on Fargate based on CPU and memory utilization while receiving real-time alerts when usage exceeds thresholds. Which AWS service combination should they use?
A) CloudWatch metrics + ECS Service Auto Scaling
B) AWS Config + Lambda
C) Amazon S3 + Athena
D) AWS Backup + SNS
Answer: A) CloudWatch metrics + ECS Service Auto Scaling
Explanation:
Amazon CloudWatch provides monitoring and observability for ECS services running on Fargate. It collects metrics such as CPU utilization, memory consumption, running task counts, and service health. Monitoring these metrics ensures that applications perform optimally and that resources are not exhausted. CloudWatch allows the creation of alarms for specific thresholds, enabling automated notifications or actions. For instance, if CPU utilization exceeds 80% for a sustained period, an alarm can notify operations teams to take action. Dashboards in CloudWatch provide visualization of historical and real-time trends, which help in capacity planning and operational decision-making.
ECS Service Auto Scaling integrates with CloudWatch to adjust the number of running tasks automatically. Scaling policies define when to add or remove tasks based on observed metrics. For example, if memory utilization exceeds the defined threshold, Auto Scaling launches additional tasks to maintain performance. Conversely, when usage decreases, tasks can be scaled down to optimize costs. This integration eliminates manual intervention and ensures applications remain performant during variable workloads. By automating scaling, organizations achieve both high availability and cost efficiency.
AWS Config and Lambda focus on resource configuration compliance and remediation. Config monitors compliance against predefined rules, and Lambda can implement automatic remediation actions. However, this combination does not monitor real-time CPU or memory usage or dynamically adjust ECS tasks, making it unsuitable for performance-based scaling.
Amazon S3 with Athena provides storage and querying capabilities. ECS logs can be stored in S3 and analyzed with Athena, but this approach is not real-time and cannot trigger alerts or adjust task counts automatically. It is useful for retrospective analysis, but does not fulfill the requirement for proactive monitoring and scaling.
AWS Backup with SNS focuses on data protection and notifications. While backup ensures recoverability and SNS can send alerts, these services do not monitor ECS performance metrics or scale tasks dynamically.
Combining CloudWatch metrics with ECS Service Auto Scaling provides a complete solution for automated scaling and real-time monitoring. CloudWatch ensures visibility into performance, triggers alerts when thresholds are breached, and Auto Scaling adjusts resources dynamically. This approach maintains application responsiveness, optimizes costs, and reduces operational overhead, making it the correct solution.
Question 143
A company’s global application must route users to the AWS region with the lowest latency, automatically fail over if a region is unhealthy, and provide real-time monitoring of endpoint health. Which AWS services meet these requirements?
A) Route 53 latency-based routing + health checks + CloudWatch
B) CloudFront + S3
C) Direct Connect + VPC Peering
D) Lambda + DynamoDB
Answer: A) Route 53 latency-based routing + health checks + CloudWatch
Explanation:
Amazon Route 53 provides latency-based routing to ensure that user requests are directed to the AWS region with the lowest network latency. Multiple endpoints across regions can be configured, and Route 53 evaluates each request’s origin to determine the optimal routing path. This ensures users experience minimal latency and improved performance. Latency-based routing dynamically adapts to changes in network conditions and user locations, enhancing the global user experience.
Health checks integrated with Route 53 continuously monitor the availability and responsiveness of each endpoint. If an endpoint fails or performance degrades, Route 53 automatically reroutes traffic to a healthy region. This failover mechanism ensures high availability and minimizes downtime without manual intervention. Health checks can monitor HTTP/S responses, TCP ports, or custom application-level indicators, providing granular control over routing decisions and failover behavior. Automated failover is essential for mission-critical applications where uptime is paramount.
CloudWatch complements Route 53 by providing real-time visibility into endpoint metrics, such as latency, error rates, request counts, and throughput. CloudWatch dashboards allow operations teams to monitor trends and identify potential issues proactively. Alarms notify teams when endpoints are unhealthy or exhibit abnormal performance. EventBridge integration allows automation of remediation, scaling, or notifications. Historical metrics in CloudWatch support trend analysis, capacity planning, and proactive performance optimization.
CloudFront and S3 improve delivery of static content through edge caching, but they do not provide latency-based routing for dynamic API traffic or automatic failover. These services are better suited for performance optimization of static assets rather than routing decisions.
Direct Connect and VPC Peering enhance private connectivity between on-premises networks and AWS VPCs or between VPCs, but they do not provide global user traffic routing, latency optimization, or failover.
Lambda with DynamoDB provides serverless compute and storage but cannot handle global latency-based routing, endpoint health checks, or failover.
Combining Route 53 latency-based routing, health checks, and CloudWatch ensures users are routed to the fastest healthy endpoint, endpoints are continuously monitored, and operations teams have actionable real-time insights. This solution provides low latency, high availability, and operational observability, making it the correct answer.
Question 144
A company processes sensitive financial transactions using AWS Lambda functions. They want to enforce encryption of environment variables, prevent unauthorized code changes, and maintain a fully auditable compliance trail. Which AWS services should they use?
A) AWS Config + Lambda + KMS
B) Amazon S3 + Athena
C) CloudFront + WAF
D) QuickSight + CloudTrail
Answer: A) AWS Config + Lambda + KMS
Explanation:
AWS Config provides continuous monitoring and assessment of AWS resources against compliance rules. For Lambda functions that process sensitive financial data, Config ensures that environment variables are encrypted using AWS Key Management Service (KMS). If any function is noncompliant, Config flags it and logs detailed information, generating a complete audit trail. Continuous monitoring ensures security policies are enforced and regulatory requirements are met. Config maintains historical configuration records, allowing organizations to verify compliance over time and conduct audits. This is crucial for financial applications where regulations such as PCI DSS, SOC 2, or SOX apply.
AWS Key Management Service (KMS) offers centralized key management and encryption. Lambda environment variables containing sensitive financial data can be encrypted using KMS-managed keys. KMS ensures that only authorized principals can decrypt these variables, preserving data confidentiality and integrity. All key usage events are logged in CloudTrail, providing a detailed audit trail of decryption events and access. KMS also supports automated key rotation to minimize the risk of key compromise, ensuring continuous protection of sensitive information.
Lambda functions themselves enforce role-based access controls to prevent unauthorized code modifications. By combining Lambda with Config and KMS, organizations implement a multi-layered security approach. Config continuously evaluates compliance, KMS enforces encryption, and Lambda roles control access to code. Automated remediation can be implemented via EventBridge or Systems Manager to correct noncompliant functions, such as re-encrypting environment variables or disabling unauthorized code modifications. This proactive approach ensures operational security without manual intervention.
Amazon S3 and Athena provide storage and analytics capabilities. While they are useful for log storage and querying, they do not enforce encryption of Lambda environment variables, prevent unauthorized code changes, or monitor compliance continuously.
CloudFront with WAF secures web applications and accelerates content delivery, but it does not provide encryption enforcement, code integrity protection, or audit trail capabilities for Lambda functions.
QuickSight with CloudTrail enables visualization and auditing of AWS activity. CloudTrail logs API calls, and QuickSight allows trend analysis. However, this combination does not actively enforce security policies or prevent unauthorized code modifications. It is primarily for post-event auditing.
The combination of AWS Config, Lambda, and KMS ensures encryption of sensitive environment variables, integrity of Lambda code, and a comprehensive audit trail. This integrated solution provides continuous monitoring, automated policy enforcement, and operational visibility. Multi-layered security and automated remediation reduce risk, enhance governance, and ensure compliance, making it the correct solution.
Question 145
A company wants to automatically scale ECS services on Fargate based on CPU and memory usage while receiving real-time alerts for threshold breaches. Which AWS service combination should they use?
A) CloudWatch metrics + ECS Service Auto Scaling
B) AWS Config + Lambda
C) Amazon S3 + Athena
D) AWS Backup + SNS
Answer: A) CloudWatch metrics + ECS Service Auto Scaling
Explanation:
Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service that collects metrics from ECS services running on Fargate, including CPU utilization, memory usage, running task counts, and service health. Monitoring these metrics allows organizations to understand performance patterns and ensure applications remain responsive under varying workloads. CloudWatch provides the ability to create alarms when predefined thresholds are exceeded. For example, sustained CPU usage above 80% can trigger an alarm to alert operations teams to scale resources. CloudWatch dashboards offer visualizations of real-time and historical metrics, enabling proactive capacity planning and operational decision-making.
ECS Service Auto Scaling integrates with CloudWatch to automatically adjust the number of running tasks in response to metric changes. Scaling policies define conditions for scaling out (adding tasks) or scaling in (removing tasks) based on observed CPU and memory utilization. If resource usage exceeds defined thresholds, Auto Scaling launches additional tasks to maintain performance and availability. Conversely, when resource utilization declines, tasks are terminated to optimize cost efficiency. This dynamic adjustment removes the need for manual intervention and ensures applications remain highly available while controlling costs.
AWS Config with Lambda focuses on resource configuration compliance and automated remediation. Config can detect configuration deviations, and Lambda can implement corrections. However, this combination does not provide real-time monitoring of ECS performance metrics or dynamic scaling of tasks based on resource usage, making it insufficient for proactive ECS scaling.
Amazon S3 with Athena provides storage and querying capabilities for structured data. ECS logs could be stored in S3 and analyzed using Athena, but this method is not real-time and cannot trigger alerts or automatically adjust task counts. It is suitable for post-event analysis rather than proactive scaling.
AWS Backup and SNS provide backup and notification services. Backup ensures resource recoverability, and SNS can send alerts. However, these services do not monitor ECS performance metrics or trigger scaling actions, making them unsuitable for performance-based automated scaling.
By combining CloudWatch metrics with ECS Service Auto Scaling, organizations achieve a complete solution for real-time monitoring and automated scaling of containerized workloads. CloudWatch provides visibility into performance, triggers alerts when thresholds are crossed, and informs Auto Scaling to dynamically adjust task counts. This ensures application responsiveness, optimizes costs, and reduces operational overhead, making it the correct solution.
Question 146
A company operates a global web application and wants to route users to the AWS region with the lowest latency, automatically fail over if a region is unhealthy, and gain real-time insights into endpoint performance. Which AWS service combination should they implement?
A) Route 53 latency-based routing + health checks + CloudWatch
B) CloudFront + S3
C) Direct Connect + VPC Peering
D) Lambda + DynamoDB
Answer: A) Route 53 latency-based routing + health checks + CloudWatch
Explanation:
Amazon Route 53 provides latency-based routing to direct user requests to the AWS region with the lowest network latency. Multiple endpoints across regions can be configured, and Route 53 evaluates the source of each request to determine the optimal routing path. This ensures minimal latency and enhanced user experience. Latency-based routing automatically adapts to network conditions and user locations, improving application responsiveness for a global audience.
Health checks in Route 53 monitor the availability and responsiveness of endpoints continuously. If an endpoint fails or exhibits degraded performance, Route 53 automatically routes traffic to a healthy region. This failover mechanism ensures high availability and minimizes downtime without manual intervention. Health checks can monitor HTTP/S responses, TCP ports, or custom application-level indicators, providing fine-grained control over routing behavior. Automated failover is critical for applications where uptime and reliability are essential.
CloudWatch provides real-time monitoring of endpoint performance and operational metrics, including latency, error rates, request counts, and throughput. CloudWatch dashboards allow teams to visualize trends and detect anomalies quickly. Alarms notify operations teams when endpoints are unhealthy or when metrics exceed predefined thresholds. Integration with EventBridge allows automated operational workflows, such as scaling resources, sending notifications, or executing remediation scripts. Historical metrics in CloudWatch enable capacity planning, performance optimization, and proactive troubleshooting.
CloudFront with S3 accelerates static content delivery but does not perform latency-based routing or automatic failover for dynamic API endpoints. These services are suitable for optimizing static assets but cannot handle real-time routing or endpoint health monitoring globally.
Direct Connect and VPC Peering improve private network connectivity but do not provide global traffic routing, latency-based optimization, or failover mechanisms.
Lambda combined with DynamoDB offers serverless compute and storage capabilities but does not provide global routing, failover, or endpoint monitoring.
By combining Route 53 latency-based routing, health checks, and CloudWatch, organizations achieve optimal routing, high availability, and operational observability. Users are directed to the fastest healthy endpoint, endpoints are continuously monitored, and teams have real-time insights to respond proactively to performance issues. This fully managed solution ensures low latency, high availability, and operational visibility, making it the correct solution.
Question 147
A company processes sensitive financial data using AWS Lambda functions. They require encryption for environment variables, prevention of unauthorized code changes, and a fully auditable compliance trail. Which AWS service combination satisfies these requirements?
A) AWS Config + Lambda + KMS
B) Amazon S3 + Athena
C) CloudFront + WAF
D) QuickSight + CloudTrail
Answer: A) AWS Config + Lambda + KMS
Explanation:
AWS Config provides continuous evaluation of AWS resources against defined compliance rules. For Lambda functions handling sensitive financial data, Config can ensure that environment variables are encrypted using AWS Key Management Service (KMS). If a function violates this policy, Config flags it and logs detailed information, creating a full audit trail. Continuous monitoring ensures that organizational security policies and regulatory requirements are consistently enforced. Config maintains historical configuration records, enabling retrospective audits and verification of compliance. This is critical for financial applications that must comply with regulations such as PCI DSS or SOC 2.
AWS Key Management Service (KMS) provides centralized encryption key management. Lambda environment variables containing sensitive data can be encrypted with KMS-managed keys. KMS ensures that only authorized principals can decrypt these variables, maintaining confidentiality and integrity. KMS logs all key usage in CloudTrail, providing a detailed record of decryption events and access. Key rotation capabilities minimize the risk of compromise and strengthen overall security posture. This encryption ensures that sensitive financial data remains protected at rest.
Lambda itself enforces role-based access control, preventing unauthorized code changes. By combining Lambda with Config and KMS, organizations implement a multi-layered security approach. Config continuously evaluates compliance, KMS enforces encryption, and Lambda roles restrict access to function code. Automated remediation workflows can be implemented via EventBridge or Systems Manager to correct noncompliant functions, such as re-encrypting environment variables or disabling unauthorized changes. This proactive approach ensures operational security without manual intervention.
Amazon S3 and Athena provide storage and query capabilities but do not enforce encryption for Lambda environment variables, prevent unauthorized code modifications, or continuously monitor compliance.
CloudFront with WAF secures web applications and accelerates content delivery but does not enforce encryption, protect code integrity, or generate an auditable compliance trail.
QuickSight with CloudTrail provides visualization and auditing of AWS activity. CloudTrail logs API calls, and QuickSight can generate dashboards and insights. However, this combination does not actively enforce encryption or prevent unauthorized changes. It is primarily for post-event auditing rather than proactive compliance enforcement.
The combination of AWS Config, Lambda, and KMS ensures encryption of sensitive environment variables, integrity of Lambda code, and a complete compliance audit trail. This integrated approach delivers continuous monitoring, automated enforcement of security policies, and operational visibility. Multi-layered enforcement reduces risk, ensures regulatory compliance, and protects sensitive financial data, making it the correct solution.
Question 148
A company wants to monitor ECS services on Fargate for CPU and memory usage and automatically scale tasks when thresholds are exceeded. Which combination of AWS services provides this capability?
A) CloudWatch metrics + ECS Service Auto Scaling
B) AWS Config + Lambda
C) Amazon S3 + Athena
D) AWS Backup + SNS
Answer: A) CloudWatch metrics + ECS Service Auto Scaling
Explanation:
Amazon CloudWatch is a comprehensive monitoring service that provides metrics and alarms for ECS services running on Fargate. CloudWatch collects real-time data on CPU utilization, memory consumption, running task counts, and other performance indicators. These metrics allow operations teams to understand how workloads consume resources and to detect potential performance issues. CloudWatch alarms can be configured to trigger notifications when certain thresholds are exceeded. For instance, sustained CPU usage above 80% can send alerts to notify teams that additional resources are required. Dashboards in CloudWatch provide a consolidated view of resource utilization and performance trends over time, helping teams with proactive capacity planning and troubleshooting.
ECS Service Auto Scaling integrates seamlessly with CloudWatch to automatically adjust the number of running tasks based on observed metrics. Scaling policies define conditions for scaling out (adding tasks) or scaling in (removing tasks). When CPU or memory utilization crosses the defined thresholds, Auto Scaling launches additional tasks to maintain application performance and responsiveness. Conversely, when utilization drops below the lower threshold, tasks are terminated to optimize costs. This automated approach eliminates the need for manual intervention and ensures applications maintain high availability while remaining cost-effective.
AWS Config combined with Lambda focuses on monitoring resource configuration and enforcing compliance rules. Config evaluates AWS resources against predefined policies, and Lambda can automatically remediate noncompliant resources. However, this combination does not monitor CPU or memory usage in real time or automatically scale ECS tasks based on workload, making it insufficient for dynamic performance-based scaling.
Amazon S3 and Athena provide storage and querying capabilities for structured data. ECS logs could be stored in S3 and analyzed with Athena to detect historical usage patterns, but this does not provide real-time monitoring or automated scaling. It is primarily useful for retrospective analysis rather than proactive operational management.
AWS Backup with SNS offers resource backup and notification services. While AWS Backup ensures recoverability of ECS resources and SNS can send alerts about backup completion or failure, these services do not monitor real-time CPU or memory metrics or automatically scale ECS tasks.
Combining CloudWatch metrics with ECS Service Auto Scaling provides an end-to-end solution for automated monitoring and scaling. CloudWatch ensures visibility into performance, triggers alarms when thresholds are exceeded, and informs Auto Scaling to adjust task counts dynamically. This integrated approach maintains application responsiveness, optimizes costs, and reduces operational overhead, making it the correct solution for ECS workload management.
Question 149
A global web application needs to route users to the AWS region with the lowest latency, automatically fail over when a region is unhealthy, and provide real-time monitoring of endpoint performance. Which AWS service combination is appropriate?
A) Route 53 latency-based routing + health checks + CloudWatch
B) CloudFront + S3
C) Direct Connect + VPC Peering
D) Lambda + DynamoDB
Answer: A) Route 53 latency-based routing + health checks + CloudWatch
Explanation:
Amazon Route 53 provides latency-based routing, which directs users to the AWS region with the lowest network latency from their location. Multiple endpoints across regions can be configured, and Route 53 evaluates each request’s origin to determine the optimal routing path. This ensures minimal latency and optimal performance for globally distributed users. Latency-based routing automatically adapts to changing network conditions and user locations, enhancing the user experience for global applications.
Health checks integrated with Route 53 monitor the availability and responsiveness of each endpoint continuously. If an endpoint fails or experiences degraded performance, Route 53 automatically routes traffic to a healthy region. This automated failover mechanism ensures high availability, reducing downtime without manual intervention. Health checks can monitor HTTP/S responses, TCP connections, or custom application indicators, providing precise control over failover behavior. Automated failover is critical for applications where uptime and reliability are essential.
CloudWatch provides real-time visibility into endpoint metrics such as latency, error rates, request counts, and throughput. CloudWatch dashboards allow teams to visualize trends and detect anomalies proactively. Alarms notify operations teams when endpoints become unhealthy or metrics exceed predefined thresholds. Integration with EventBridge enables automated operational workflows, such as scaling resources, sending notifications, or executing remediation scripts. Historical CloudWatch metrics also allow for trend analysis, capacity planning, and proactive optimization of the application.
CloudFront combined with S3 improves static content delivery via edge caching but does not provide latency-based routing or automated failover for dynamic endpoints. While CloudFront enhances performance for static assets, it cannot manage dynamic API traffic or monitor endpoint health globally.
Direct Connect and VPC Peering enhance private network connectivity between on-premises environments and AWS VPCs or between VPCs. However, they do not provide global traffic routing, latency-based optimization, or automated failover.
Lambda with DynamoDB offers serverless compute and storage capabilities but does not perform global routing, endpoint health checks, or failover for web applications.
By combining Route 53 latency-based routing, health checks, and CloudWatch, organizations achieve optimal traffic routing, high availability, and operational observability. Users are directed to the fastest healthy endpoints, endpoints are continuously monitored, and operations teams gain actionable insights. This fully managed solution ensures low latency, high availability, and real-time performance visibility, making it the correct solution.
Question 150
A company processes sensitive financial data using AWS Lambda functions. They require encryption of environment variables, prevention of unauthorized code changes, and a fully auditable compliance trail. Which combination of AWS services should they implement?
A) AWS Config + Lambda + KMS
B) Amazon S3 + Athena
C) CloudFront + WAF
D) QuickSight + CloudTrail
Answer: A) AWS Config + Lambda + KMS
Explanation:
AWS Config provides continuous evaluation of AWS resources against predefined compliance rules. For Lambda functions handling sensitive financial transactions, Config ensures that environment variables are encrypted using AWS Key Management Service (KMS). If a Lambda function is noncompliant, Config flags it and logs detailed information, creating a comprehensive audit trail. Continuous monitoring ensures that organizational security policies and regulatory requirements are consistently enforced. Config also retains historical configuration records, enabling retrospective auditing and verification of compliance, which is essential for financial applications adhering to standards such as PCI DSS or SOC 2.
AWS Key Management Service (KMS) provides centralized encryption key management. Lambda environment variables containing sensitive financial data can be encrypted with KMS-managed keys. KMS ensures that only authorized principals can decrypt these variables, preserving confidentiality and integrity. Key usage events are logged in CloudTrail, providing a detailed audit trail of decryption events and access. Key rotation capabilities in KMS minimize the risk of key compromise, ensuring continuous protection of sensitive information.
Lambda functions enforce role-based access control to prevent unauthorized code changes. By combining Lambda with Config and KMS, organizations implement a multi-layered security strategy. Config continuously evaluates compliance, KMS enforces encryption, and Lambda roles control access to the code. Automated remediation workflows can be implemented using EventBridge or Systems Manager to correct noncompliant functions, such as re-encrypting environment variables or disabling unauthorized modifications. This proactive approach ensures operational security without manual intervention.
Amazon S3 and Athena provide storage and query capabilities, but do not enforce encryption for Lambda environment variables, prevent unauthorized code modifications, or continuously monitor compliance.
CloudFront with WAF secures web applications and accelerates content deliver,y but does not provide encryption enforcement, code integrity protection, or compliance auditing for Lambda functions.
QuickSight with CloudTrail provides visualization and auditing of AWS activity. CloudTrail logs API calls, and QuickSight can generate reports and dashboards. However, this combination does not actively enforce encryption or prevent unauthorized code changes. It is primarily a post-event auditing tool rather than a preventive compliance solution.
By combining AWS Config, Lambda, and KMS, organizations ensure encryption of sensitive environment variables, integrity of Lambda code, and a complete compliance audit trail. This integrated solution delivers continuous monitoring, automated policy enforcement, and operational visibility. Multi-layered enforcement reduces risk, ensures regulatory compliance, and protects sensitive financial data, making it the correct solution.