AWS Cloud Practitioner Practice Test (CLF-C02)

To achieve high availability, a company should deploy their application across multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone operates independently of the others and is engineered to be insulated from failures in other Availability Zones, thus providing redundancy and failover capabilities for the application. Deploying an application in a single data center or solely relying on autoscaling without distributing across multiple Availability Zones does not necessarily equate to high availability, as these strategies do not protect against issues that might affect a single physical location.

The correct service is the one offered by the cloud provider that evaluates your current usage and configurations and provides recommendations for optimization. It covers various categories such as cost savings, security, performance, and service limits. The alternatives provided in other answers, such as the Health Dashboard and Health API, are focused more on the health and performance of services rather than cost optimization and best practice audits.

The service that fits this requirement is Security Hub because it integrates with various data sources, such as other security services and partner products, to provide a centralized view and management of security alerts and compliance status. It automatically aggregates and prioritizes findings to help focus on the highest risks. In contrast, Shield specializes in DDoS protection, Inspector offers automated vulnerability assessments for applications, and CloudWatch primarily provides monitoring for operational metrics rather than a comprehensive security analysis.

Reserved Instance flexibility allows companies to apply reservations to instances that match the attributes of the reservation such as instance type and region, which provides cost savings while maintaining flexibility in which specific instances benefit from the reservation. This is advantageous as it helps in cost management and in making changes to the deployments without losing the benefit of the reservation. Modifying the instance family or offering class does not provide the same level of flexibility, and converting a reservation into an On-Demand Instance would negate the cost benefits of having a reservation at all.

One of the key benefits of joining a partnership with a leading cloud service provider is access to educational programs and credentialing opportunities. These programs are designed to enhance the technical capabilities and industry reputation of partner companies, enabling them to provide more effective solutions to their clients and potentially attract new business. Getting discounts on services or subscriptions to enterprise-level support plans may be part of negotiated agreements for certain partners but are not standard benefits offered to all members in a partner network. Featured placement in a partner directory is typically a benefit offered to partners who meet certain criteria or reach specific partnership levels, and it's not a universal benefit.

The main financial advantage is that the shift to a cloud service provider allows the business to reduce upfront capital expenditures on physical hardware since billing is based on the actual consumption of computing resources. This matches expenditures to usage and can result in significant cost savings, particularly in scenarios with fluctuating demand. Fixed costs would not offer the same economic flexibility and could lead to overprovisioning. Licensing models that are per user do not accurately represent the use-based cost savings of cloud services. While reserved instances can indeed provide cost discounts for certain use cases, they involve upfront payment or a commitment to a certain level of usage, hence they do not represent the same level of financial flexibility provided by on-demand, consumption-based pricing.

Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances offer flexibility that includes the ability to modify instances, but modifications are subject to certain limitations. You can change the Availability Zone, the scope (regional or a specific Availability Zone), and the instance size within the same instance family, but you cannot switch between different instance families. This constraint is designed to maintain the reserved capacity for a particular family due to demand and capacity planning by AWS.

Spot Instances are the most suitable option for a workload with variable start times that can be interrupted and seeks to minimize costs, especially in a non-production environment. Spot Instances allow customers to take advantage of unused EC2 capacity at a reduced cost, up to 90% off the On-Demand price, with the caveat that the instances can be reclaimed by AWS with little notice if the capacity is needed elsewhere. This makes them ideal for flexible, interruptible workloads like development and testing. On-Demand Instances are better for workloads requiring immediate and uninterrupted capacity. Reserved Instances and Savings Plans provide cost savings for predictable, steady-state usage, but they come with a commitment, and they aren't typically the best fit for unpredictable, sporadic workloads that can tolerate interruptions.

Reserved Instances would be the most appropriate choice for the company because they provide a significant discount compared to On-Demand pricing, in exchange for a commitment to use the instance for either a one- or three-year term. This upfront commitment aligns well with the company's requirement to run the workload heavily for one year. Spot Instances, while offering even lower prices, are not suitable for predictable and steady-state workloads since they can be interrupted by AWS with a two-minute notification if the capacity is needed back. Savings Plans are close but would require more complexity in managing commitments across different instance families or regions, whereas a Reserved Instance can directly reflect their exact needs.

Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) is the best choice for data that is accessed less frequently, but requires rapid access when needed. It offers a lower storage cost compared to Amazon S3 Standard, while still providing high throughput and fast access to data when an audit occurs, which satisfies the financial institution's need for quick retrieval during unexpected audits.

AWS Security Hub is designed to provide a comprehensive view by aggregating, organizing, and prioritizing security alerts – or findings – from multiple AWS services, as well as from AWS Partner solutions. The service provides a central place where these findings can be collected from all accounts and analyzed, without requiring each service's native interface. AWS Config primarily assesses the configuration of resources within your environment. Amazon CloudTrail focuses on recording user and API activities for governance, compliance, and auditing while Amazon Inspector is an automated vulnerability assessment service to improve the security and compliance of applications deployed on AWS.

The service in question enables automated security assessments which help to detect and report on possible vulnerabilities or deviations from best practices, such as unintended network accessibility. Among the available options, the service specifically designed for this purpose is Amazon Inspector. It facilitates these assessments by checking for various vulnerabilities, including exposure of the servers to the internet or other security issues.

CloudTrail is designed to provide comprehensive logging of all API calls made to Amazon's cloud services. This is crucial for audit and compliance purposes as it allows trackability and accountability of actions performed within the environment. While other services like CloudWatch Logs aid in monitoring and logging application-specific data, and Config helps in assessing configurations, they do not offer the same level of detailed API call logging that CloudTrail does.

Using AWS's global infrastructure allows for low latency and faster application performance due to the proximity of data centers to end-users. This capability ensures applications can be deployed closer to the users, providing a better experience.

Amazon S3 Glacier is designed for long-term storage of data that is infrequently accessed and provides a cost-effective solution for data archiving and backup. However, it is not suitable for scenarios requiring immediate access, which is a requirement here. Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) is a storage class designed to provide high availability and low latency for infrequently accessed data with a lower storage cost compared to Amazon S3 Standard. Amazon S3 Standard is designed for frequently accessed data and does not offer the same cost benefits for infrequently accessed data as S3 Standard-IA. Amazon EBS is block storage that is used with EC2 instances for volumes that require frequent and rapid read/write operations and is not the cost-effective choice for infrequently accessed data.