AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional SAP-C02 Practice Question

The correct answer is AWS Systems Manager State Manager. State Manager is designed to be a scalable configuration management service that automates the process of keeping managed nodes in a defined state. It uses documents to define the desired configuration and 'associations' to apply that configuration to a target set of instances on a schedule. State Manager continuously monitors the fleet for configuration drift and reports compliance status to a central dashboard, which directly addresses the key requirements of the scenario.

• AWS Systems Manager Run Command is used for executing ad-hoc or on-demand commands on managed instances. While it can be used to apply a configuration once, it does not inherently maintain a persistent state or automatically scan for and remediate configuration drift over time, making it less effective for this use case than State Manager.
• AWS Systems Manager Distributor is used to securely store and distribute software packages to managed instances. While it can be used as part of a configuration management solution (for example, a State Manager association could use Distributor to install a package), it does not by itself enforce the configuration or manage drift. It is a tool for package distribution, not state management.
• AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager is a specialized service for automating the process of patching operating systems and applications with security and other updates. Its scope is limited to patching and does not cover general-purpose configuration management, such as installing specific software or enforcing custom security settings as required by the scenario.