DOP-C02 AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional Question and Answers

The correct answer is A.

A comprehensive and detailed explanation is:

• Option A is correct because it meets the requirements with the most operational efficiency. Updating the ecommerce application to emit a JSON object to a CloudWatch log group for each processed transaction is a simple and cost-effective way to collect the data needed for the dashboard. Using CloudWatch Logs Insights to query the log group and to visualize the results in a pie chart format is also a convenient and integrated solution that leverages the existing CloudWatch dashboards. Attaching the results to the desired CloudWatch dashboard is straightforward and does not require any additional steps or services.
• Option B is incorrect because it introduces unnecessary complexity and cost. Updating the ecommerce application to emit a JSON object to an Amazon S3 bucket for each processed transaction is a valid way to store the data, but it requires creating and managing an S3 bucket and its permissions. Using Amazon Athena to query the S3 bucket and to visualize the results in a pie chart format is also a valid way to analyze the data, but it incurs charges based on the amount of data scanned by each query. Exporting the results from Athena and attaching them to the desired CloudWatch dashboard is also an extra step that adds more overhead and latency.
• Option C is incorrect because it uses AWS X-Ray for an inappropriate purpose. Updating the ecommerce application to use AWS X-Ray for instrumentation is a good practice for monitoring and tracing distributed applications, but it is not designed for aggregating product transaction details. Creating a new X-Ray subsegment and adding an annotation for each processed transaction is possible, but it would clutter the X-Ray service map and make it harder to debug performance issues. Using X-Ray traces to query the data and to visualize the results in a pie chart format is also possible, but it would require custom code and logic that are not supported by X-Ray natively. Attaching the results to the desired CloudWatch dashboard is also not supported by X-Ray directly, and would require additional steps or services.
• Option D is incorrect because it introduces unnecessary complexity and cost. Updating the ecommerce application to emit a JSON object to a CloudWatch log group for each processed transaction is a simple and cost-effective way to collect the data needed for the dashboard, as in option A. However, creating an AWS Lambda function to aggregate and write the results to Amazon DynamoDB is redundant, as CloudWatch Logs Insights can already perform aggregation queries on log data. Creating a Lambda subscription filter for the log file is also redundant, as CloudWatch Logs Insights can already access log data directly. Attaching the results to the desired CloudWatch dashboard would also require additional steps or services, as DynamoDB does not support native integration with CloudWatch dashboards.

References:

• CloudWatch Logs Insights
• Amazon Athena
• AWS X-Ray
• AWS Lambda
• Amazon DynamoDB

https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/cloudformation-update-rollback-failed If your stack is stuck in the UPDATE_ROLLBACK_FAILED state after a failed update, then the only actions that you can perform on the stack are the ContinueUpdateRollback or DeleteStack operations.

A Lambda function in one account can mount a file system in a different account. For this scenario, you configure VPC peering between the function VPC and the file system VPC. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/d g/services-efs.html

https://aws.amazon.com/ru/blogs/storage/mount-amazon-efs-file-systems-cross-account-from-amazon-eks/

1. Need to update the file system policy on EFS to allow mounting the file system into Account B.

## File System Policy

$ cat file-system-policy.json

{

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Allow",

"Action": [

"elasticfilesystem:ClientMount",

"elasticfilesystem:ClientWrite"

],

"Principal": {

"AWS": "arn:aws:iam:::root" # Replace with AWS account ID of EKS cluster

}

}

]

}

2. Need VPC peering between Account A and Account B as the pre-requisite

3. Need to assume cross-account IAM role to describe the mounts so that a specific mount can be chosen.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/organizations/latest/userguide/orgs_manage_policies_scps.html?icmpid=docs_orgs_console

SCPs (Service Control Policies) are the best way to restrict permissions at the organizational level, which in this case would be used to restrict modifications to the IAM role used by the auditing application, while still allowing trusted administrators to make changes to it. Options C and D are not as effective because IAM permission boundaries are applied to IAM entities (users, groups, and roles), not the account itself, and must be applied to all IAM entities in the account.

The problem is that the DevOps engineer cannot assume the OrganizationAccountAccessRole IAM role in the new member account that joined AnyCompany’s management account through an Organizations invitation. The solution is to create a new IAM role with the same name and trust policy in the new member account.

• Option A is incorrect, as it does not address the root cause of the error. The DevOps engineer’s IAM user already has permission to assume the OrganizationAccountAccessRole IAM role in any member account, as this is the default role name that AWS Organizations creates when a new account joins an organization. The error occurs because the new member account does not have this role, as it was not created by AWS Organizations.
• Option B is incorrect, as it does not address the root cause of the error. An SCP is a policy that defines the maximum permissions for account members of an organization or organizational unit (OU). An SCP does not grant permissions to IAM users or roles, but rather limits the permissions that identity-based policies or resource-based policies grant to them. An SCP also does not affect how IAM roles are assumed by other principals.
• Option C is correct, as it addresses the root cause of the error. By creating a new IAM role with the same name and trust policy as the OrganizationAccountAccessRole IAM role in the new member account, the DevOps engineer can assume this role and access the account. The new role should have the AdministratorAccess AWS managed policy attached, which grants full access to all AWS resources in the account. The trust policy should allow the management account to assume the role, which can be done by specifying the management account ID as a principal in the policy statement.
• Option D is incorrect, as it assumes that the new member account already has the OrganizationAccountAccessRole IAM role, which is not true. The new member account does not have this role, as it was not created by AWS Organizations. Editing the trust policy of a non-existent role will not solve the problem.

If instead you want to automatically apply the policy to existing in-scope resources, choose Auto remediate any noncompliant resources. This option creates a web ACL in each applicable account within the AWS organization and associates the web ACL with the resources in the accounts. When you choose Auto remediate any noncompliant resources, you can also choose to remove existing web ACL associations from in-scope resources, for the web ACLs that aren't managed by another active Firewall Manager policy. If you choose this option, Firewall Manager first associates the policy's web ACL with the resources, and then removes the prior associations. If a resource has an association with another web ACL that's managed by a different active Firewall Manager policy, this choice doesn't affect that association.

In the source AWS account, the IAM role used by the CI/CD pipeline should have permissions to access the source code repository, build artifacts, and any other resources required for the build process. In the destination AWS accounts, the IAM role used for deployment should have permissions to access the AWS resources required for deploying the application, such as EC2 instances, RDS databases, S3 buckets, etc. The exact permissions required will depend on the specific resources being used by the application. the IAM role used for deployment in the destination accounts should also have permissions to assume the IAM role for deployment in the centralized DevOps account. This is typically done using an IAM role trust policy that allows the destination account to assume the DevOps account role.

The correct answer is C. Allowing users to deploy CloudFormation stacks using AWS Service Catalog only and enforcing the use of a launch constraint is the best way to ensure that the internal business teams launch resources through pre-approved CloudFormation templates only. AWS Service Catalog is a service that enables organizations to create and manage catalogs of IT services that are approved for use on AWS. A launch constraint is a rule that specifies the role that AWS Service Catalog assumes when launching a product. By using a launch constraint, the DevOps engineer can control the permissions that the users have when launching a product. Using AWS Config rules to detect when resources have drifted from their expected state is the best way to automate the monitoring of the resources. AWS Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. AWS Config rules are custom or managed rules that AWS Config uses to evaluate whether your AWS resources comply with your desired configurations. By using AWS Config rules, the DevOps engineer can track the changes in the resources and identify any non-compliant resources.

Option A is incorrect because allowing users to deploy CloudFormation stacks using a CloudFormation service role only is not the best way to ensure that the internal business teams launch resources through pre-approved CloudFormation templates only. A CloudFormation service role is an IAM role that CloudFormation assumes to create, update, or delete the stack resources. By using a CloudFormation service role, the DevOps engineer can control the permissions that CloudFormation has when acting on the resources, but not the permissions that the users have when launching a stack. Therefore, option A does not prevent the users from launching resources that are not approved by the company. Using CloudFormation drift detection to detect when resources have drifted from their expected state is a valid way to monitor the resources, but it is not as automated and scalable as using AWS Config rules. CloudFormation drift detection is a feature that enables you to detect whether a stack’s actual configuration differs, or has drifted, from its expected configuration. To use this feature, the DevOps engineer would need to manually initiate a drift detection operation on the stack or the stack resources, and then view the drift status and details in the CloudFormation console or API.

Option B is incorrect because allowing users to deploy CloudFormation stacks using a CloudFormation service role only is not the best way to ensure that the internal business teams launch resources through pre-approved CloudFormation templates only, as explained in option A. Using AWS Config rules to detect when resources have drifted from their expected state is a valid way to monitor the resources, as explained in option C.

Option D is incorrect because enforcing the use of a template constraint is not the best way to ensure that the internal business teams launch resources through pre-approved CloudFormation templates only. A template constraint is a rule that defines the values or properties that users can specify when launching a product. By using a template constraint, the DevOps engineer can control the parameters that the users can provide when launching a product, but not the permissions that the users have when launching a product. Therefore, option D does not prevent the users from launching resources that are not approved by the company. Using Amazon EventBridge notifications to detect when resources have drifted from their expected state is a less reliable and consistent solution than using AWS Config rules. Amazon EventBridge is a service that enables you to connect your applications with data from a variety of sources. Amazon EventBridge can deliver a stream of real-time data from event sources, such as AWS services, and route that data to targets, such as AWS Lambda functions. However, to use this solution, the DevOps engineer would need to configure the event source, the event bus, the event rule, and the event target for each resource type that needs to be monitored, which is more complex and error-prone than using AWS Config rules.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/latest/APIReference/API_RefreshCache.html " It only updates the cached inventory to reflect changes in the inventory of the objects in the S3 bucket. This operation is only supported in the S3 File Gateway types."

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/vpc-nat-gateway.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/singlesignon/latest/userguide/configure-abac.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-instance-recover.html

EC2 instances running in private subnets of a VPC can now have controlled access to S3 buckets, objects, and API functions that are in the same region as the VPC. You can use an S3 bucket policy to indicate which VPCs and which VPC Endpoints have access to your S3 buckets 1- https://aws.amazon.co m/pt/blogs/aws/new-vpc-endpoint-for-amazon-s3/

The correct answer is D. Creating an AWS Config conformance pack that contains the AWS Config rules and remediation actions and deploying it from the delegated administrator account by using AWS Config will meet the requirements. A conformance pack is a collection of AWS Config rules and remediation actions that can be easily deployed as a single entity in an account and a region or across an organization in AWS Organizations1. By using the delegated administrator account, the DevOps engineer can centrally manage the conformance pack and prevent non-administrator users from modifying it in the member accounts. Option A is incorrect because creating a CloudFormation template that contains the AWS Config rules and remediation actions and deploying it from the Organizations management account by using CloudFormation StackSets will not prevent non-administrator users from modifying the AWS Config rules in the member accounts. Option B is incorrect because deploying the conformance pack from the Organizations management account by using CloudFormation StackSets will not use the trusted access feature of AWS Config and will require additional permissions and resources. Option C is incorrect because creating a CloudFormation template that contains the AWS Config rules and remediation actions and deploying it from the delegated administrator account by using AWS Config will not leverage the benefits of conformance packs, such as simplified deployment and management. References:

• Conformance Packs - AWS Config
• Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional (DOP-C02) Study Guide (page 176)

https://aws.amazon.com/caching/session-management/

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codedeploy/latest/userguide/integrations-aws-auto-scaling.html

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/02/aws-cloudformation-stacksets-introduces-automat ic-deployments-across-accounts-and-regions-through-aws-organizations/

To meet the requirements, the DevOps engineer needs to configure the CloudWatch alarm to stop the EC2 instances when the average of the NetworkPacketsIn metric is less than 5 for at least 3 hours in a 12-hour time window. This means that the alarm should trigger when 3 out of 12 datapoints are below the threshold of 5. The alarm should also treat missing data as not breaching the threshold, so that the EC2 instances continue to run if there is no data for the metric during the evaluation period. The DevOps engineer can add an EC2 action to stop the instance when the alarm enters the ALARM state, which is a built-in action type for CloudWatch alarms.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/managed-prefix-lists.html A managed prefix list is a set of one or more CIDR blocks. You can use prefix lists to make it easier to configure and maintain your security groups and route tables. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/sharing-managed-prefix-lists.html With AWS Resource Access Manager (AWS RAM), the owner of a prefix list can share a prefix list with the following: Specific AWS accounts inside or outside of its organization in AWS Organizations An organizational unit inside its organization in AWS Organizations An entire organization in AWS Organizations

To restore the functionality of the Auto Scaling group after the AMI was deleted, the DevOps engineer needs to create a new AMI and update the Auto Scaling group to use it. The DevOps engineer can create a new AMI by copying the most recent public AMI of the operating system that the EC2 instances use. This will ensure that the new AMI has the same operating system as the custom AMI that was deleted. The DevOps engineer can then create a new launch template that uses the new AMI and update the Auto Scaling group to use the new launch template. This will allow the Auto Scaling group to launch new instances with the new AMI.

Option A is the most cost-effective solution. By configuring a warm pool of EC2 instances in the Stopped state, the company can reduce the time it takes for new instances to be ready to serve requests. When the Auto Scaling group launches a new instance, it can attach the stopped EC2 instance from the warm pool. The instance can then be started up immediately, rather than having to wait for the data to be downloaded and processed. This reduces the overall startup time for the application.

The solution that meets the requirements is to use EC2 Image Builder to create a container image pipeline, use Amazon ECR as the target repository, turn on enhanced scanning on the ECR repository, create an Amazon EventBridge rule to capture an Inspector2 finding event, and use the event to invoke the image pipeline. Re-upload the container to the repository.

This solution will continuously monitor the container repository for vulnerabilities using enhanced scanning, which is a feature of Amazon ECR that provides detailed information and guidance on how to fix security issues found in your container images. Enhanced scanning uses Inspector2, a security assessment service that integrates with Amazon ECR and generates findings for any vulnerabilities detected in your images. You can use Amazon EventBridge to create a rule that triggers an action when an Inspector2 finding event occurs. The action can be to invoke an EC2 Image Builder pipeline, which is a service that automates the creation of container images. The pipeline can use the latest patches and updates to build a new container image and upload it to the same ECR repository, replacing the vulnerable image.

The other options are not correct because they do not meet all the requirements or use services that are not relevant for the scenario.

Option B is not correct because it uses Amazon GuardDuty Malware Protection, which is a feature of GuardDuty that detects malicious activity and unauthorized behavior on your AWS accounts and resources. GuardDuty does not scan container images for vulnerabilities, nor does it integrate with Amazon ECR or EC2 Image Builder.

Option C is not correct because it uses basic scanning on the ECR repository, which only provides a summary of the vulnerabilities found in your container images. Basic scanning does not use Inspector2 or generate findings that can be captured by Amazon EventBridge. Moreover, basic scanning does not provide guidance on how to fix the vulnerabilities.

Option D is not correct because it uses AWS Systems Manager Compliance, which is a feature of Systems Manager that helps you monitor and manage the compliance status of your AWS resources based on AWS Config rules and AWS Security Hub standards. Systems Manager Compliance does not scan container images for vulnerabilities, nor does it integrate with Amazon ECR or EC2 Image Builder.

To meet the requirements of deploying a workload on several hundred EC2 instances with least-privilege permissions and temporary security credentials, the company should use an IAM role and an instance profile. An IAM role is a way to grant permissions to an entity that you trust, such as an EC2 instance. An instance profile is a container for an IAM role that you can use to pass role information to an EC2 instance when the instance starts. By using an IAM role and an instance profile, the EC2 instances can automatically receive temporary security credentials from the AWS Security Token Service (STS) and use them to access the S3 buckets. This way, the company does not need to manage or rotate any long-term credentials, such as IAM users or access keys.

To use an IAM role and an instance profile, the company should create an IAM role that has the appropriate permissions for S3 buckets. The permissions should allow the EC2 instances to read from the source S3 bucket and write to the destination S3 bucket. The company should also create a trust policy for the IAM role that specifies that EC2 is allowed to assume the role. Then, the company should add the IAM role to an instance profile. An instance profile can have only one IAM role, so the company does not need to create multiple roles or profiles for this scenario.

Next, the company should update the launch template to include the IAM instance profile. A launch template is a way to save launch parameters for EC2 instances, such as the instance type, security group, user data, and IAM instance profile. By using a launch template, the company can ensure that all EC2 instances in the Auto Scaling group have consistent configuration and permissions. The company should specify the name or ARN of the IAM instance profile in the launch template. This way, when the Auto Scaling group launches new EC2 instances based on the launch template, they will automatically receive the IAM role and its permissions through the instance profile.

The other options are not correct because they do not meet the requirements or follow best practices. Creating an IAM user and generating a secret key and token is not a good option because it involves managing long-term credentials that need to be rotated regularly. Moreover, embedding credentials in user data is not secure because user data is visible to anyone who can describe the EC2 instance. Creating a trust anchor and profile is not a valid option because trust anchors are used for certificate-based authentication, not for IAM roles or instance profiles. Modifying user data to use a new secret key and token is also not a good option because it requires updating user data every time the credentials change, which is not scalable or efficient.

References:

• 1: AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional Certification | AWS Certification | AWS
• 2: DevOps Resources - Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• 3: Exam Readiness: AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional
• : IAM Roles for Amazon EC2 - AWS Identity and Access Management
• : Working with Instance Profiles - AWS Identity and Access Management
• : Launching an Instance Using a Launch Template - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
• : Temporary Security Credentials - AWS Identity and Access Management

Create an Amazon EventBridge (Amazon CloudWatch Events) rule that matches an AWS Config evaluation result of NON_COMPLIANT for the restricted-ssh rule. Configure an input transformer for the EventBridge (CloudWatch Events) rule. Configure the EventBridge (CloudWatch Events) rule to publish a notification to the SNS topic. This approach uses Amazon EventBridge (previously known as Amazon CloudWatch Events) to filter AWS Config evaluation results based on the restricted-ssh rule and its compliance status (NON_COMPLIANT). An input transformer can be used to customize the information contained in the notification, such as the name and ID of the noncompliant security group. The EventBridge (CloudWatch Events) rule can then be configured to publish a notification to the SNS topic, which will notify the appropriate personnel in real-time.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codedeploy/latest/userguide/reference-appspec-file-structure-hooks.html

AWS Secrets Manager is a secrets management service that helps you protect access to your applications, services, and IT resources. This service enables you to easily rotate, manage, and retrieve database credentials, API keys, and other secrets throughout their lifecycle. Using Secrets Manager, you can secure and manage secrets used to access resources in the AWS Cloud, on third-party services, and on-premises. SSM parameter store and AWS Secret manager are both a secure option. However, Secrets manager is more flexible and has more options like password generation. Reference: https://www.1strategy.com/blog/2019/02/28/aws-parameter-store- vs-aws-secrets-manager/

This solution will meet the requirements because it will use Amazon S3 as a common data lake for both the application logs and the API logs. Amazon S3 is a service that provides scalable, durable, and secure object storage for any type of data. You can use the Amazon CloudWatch agent to send logs from your EC2 instances to S3 buckets, and use AWS CloudTrail to deliver the API logs to S3 buckets as well. You can also use Amazon Athena to query both sets of logs in S3 using standard SQL, without loading or transforming them. Athena is a serverless interactive query service that allows you to analyze data in S3 using a variety of data formats, such as JSON, CSV, Parquet, and ORC.

Use routing configuration on an alias to send a portion of traffic to a second function version. For example, you can reduce the risk of deploying a new version by configuring the alias to send most of the traffic to the existing version, and only a small percentage of traffic to the new version. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/configuration-aliases.html

The following are the steps involved in the deploy stage configuration that will meet the requirements:

• Use AWS CodeBuild to add sample event payloads for testing to the Lambda functions.
• Publish a new version of the functions, and include Amazon CloudWatch alarms.
• Update the production alias to point to the new version.
• Configure rollbacks to occur when an alarm is in the ALARM state.

This configuration will help to reduce the customer impact of an unsuccessful deployment by deploying the new version of the functions to a staging environment first. This will allow the DevOps engineer to test the new version of the functions before deploying it to production.

The configuration will also help to monitor for issues by including Amazon CloudWatch alarms. These alarms will alert the DevOps engineer if there are any problems with the new version of the functions.

This solution will meet the requirements because it will create a temporary copy of the production database using a snapshot, run the integration tests on the copy, and delete the copy after the tests are done. This way, the production database will not be affected by the code revisions, and the DevOps team can test the changes before deploying them to production. A buildspec file is a YAML file that contains the commands and settings that CodeBuild uses to run a build1. The buildspec file can specify the steps to restore the DB cluster from a snapshot, run the integration tests, and drop the restored database2

The best solution to implement failover for the application is to use CloudFront origin groups. Origin groups allow CloudFront to automatically switch to a secondary origin when the primary origin is unavailable or returns specific HTTP status codes that indicate a failure1. This way, CloudFront can serve the requests from the secondary ALB in the secondary Region without any delay or redirection. To set up origin groups, the DevOps engineer needs to create a new origin on the distribution for the secondary ALB, create a new origin group with the original ALB as the primary origin and the secondary ALB as the secondary origin, and configure the origin group to fail over for HTTP 5xx status codes. Then, the DevOps engineer needs to update the default behavior to use the origin group instead of the single origin2.

The other options are not as effective or efficient as the solution in option B. Option A is not suitable because creating a second CloudFront distribution will increase the complexity and cost of the application. Moreover, using Route 53 alias records with a failover policy will introduce some delay in detecting and switching to the secondary CloudFront distribution, which may not meet the zero-second RTO requirement. Option C is not feasible because CloudFront does not support using Route 53 alias records as origins3. Option D is not advisable because using a CloudFront function to redirect the requests to the secondary ALB will add an extra round-trip and latency to the failover process, which may also not meet the zero-second RTO requirement.

References:

• 1: Optimizing high availability with CloudFront origin failover - Amazon CloudFront
• 2: Creating an origin group - Amazon CloudFront
• 3: Values That You Specify When You Create or Update a Web Distribution - Amazon CloudFront

A comprehensive and detailed explanation is:

• Option A is correct because removing the AdministratorAccess policy and assigning the ReadOnlyAccess managed IAM policy to the developer role is a valid way to prevent the developers from making any manual changes to the deployed resources. The AdministratorAccess policy grants full access to all AWS resources and actions, which is not necessary for the developers. The ReadOnlyAccess policy grants read-only access to most AWS resources and actions, which is sufficient for the developers to view the status of their stacks. Instructing the developers to use the CloudFormationDeployment role as a CloudFormation service role when they deploy new stacks is also a valid way to ensure that only CloudFormation can use the new role. A CloudFormation service role is an IAM role that allows CloudFormation to make calls to resources in a stack on behalf of the user1. The user can specify a service role when they create or update a stack, and CloudFormation will use that role’s credentials for all operations that are performed on that stack1.
• Option B is incorrect because updating the trust of CloudFormationDeployment role to allow the developer IAM role to assume the CloudFormationDeployment role is not a valid solution. This would allow the developers to manually assume the CloudFormationDeployment role and perform actions on the deployed resources, which is not what the company wants. The trust of CloudFormationDeployment role should only allow the cloudformation.amazonaws.com AWS principal to assume the role, as in option D.
• Option C is incorrect because configuring the IAM user to be able to get and pass the CloudFormationDeployment role if cloudformation actions for resources is not a valid solution. This would allow the developers to manually pass the CloudFormationDeployment role to other services or resources, which is not what the company wants. The IAM user should only be able to pass the CloudFormationDeployment role as a service role when they create or update a stack with CloudFormation, as in option A.
• Option D is correct because updating the trust of CloudFormationDeployment role to allow the cloudformation.amazonaws.com AWS principal to perform the iam:AssumeRole action is a valid solution. This allows CloudFormation to assume the CloudFormationDeployment role and access resources in other services on behalf of the user2. The trust policy of an IAM role defines which entities can assume the role2. By specifying cloudformation.amazonaws.com as the principal, you grant permission only to CloudFormation to assume this role.
• Option E is incorrect because instructing the developers to assume the CloudFormationDeployment role when they deploy new stacks is not a valid solution. This would allow the developers to manually assume the CloudFormationDeployment role and perform actions on the deployed resources, which is not what the company wants. The developers should only use the CloudFormationDeployment role as a service role when they deploy new stacks with CloudFormation, as in option A.
• Option F is correct because adding an IAM policy to CloudFormationDeployment that allows cloudformation:* on all resources and adding a policy that allows the iam:PassRole action for ARN of CloudFormationDeployment if iam:PassedToService equals cloudformation.amazonaws.com are valid solutions. The first policy grants permission for CloudFormationDeployment to perform any action with any resource using cloudformation.amazonaws.com as a service principal3. The second policy grants permission for passing this role only if it is passed by cloudformation.amazonaws.com as a service principal4. This ensures that only CloudFormation can use this role.

References:

• 1: AWS CloudFormation service roles
• 2: How to use trust policies with IAM roles
• 3: AWS::IAM::Policy
• 4: IAM: Pass an IAM role to a specific AWS service

 The correct solution is to create a new assertion safety rule in Route 53 ARC and apply it to the two routing controls. An assertion safety rule is a type of safety rule that ensures that a minimum number of routing controls are always enabled. The ATLEAST type of assertion safety rule specifies the minimum number of routing controls that must be enabled for the rule to evaluate as healthy. By setting the threshold to 1, the rule ensures that at least one routing control is always turned on. This prevents the scenario where both routing controls are accidentally turned off and the application becomes unavailable in both Regions.

The other solutions are incorrect because they do not use safety rules to prevent both routing controls from being turned off. A gating safety rule is a type of safety rule that prevents routing control state changes that violate the rule logic. The OR type of gating safety rule specifies that one or more routing controls must be enabled for the rule to evaluate as healthy. However, this rule does not prevent a user from turning off both routing controls manually. A resource set is a collection of resources that are tested for readiness by Route 53 ARC. A readiness check is a test that verifies that all the resources in a resource set are operational. However, these concepts are not related to routing control states or safety rules. Therefore, creating a new resource set and a new readiness check will not ensure that at least one routing control is turned on at all times. References:

• Routing control in Amazon Route 53 Application Recovery Controller
• Viewing and updating routing control states in Route 53 ARC
• Creating a control panel in Route 53 ARC
• Creating safety rules in Route 53 ARC

To implement governance controls that restrict AWS service usage to within the United States and ensure alerts for any activity outside the governance policy, the following actions will meet the requirements:

• A. Create an AWS Organizations SCP that denies access to all non-global services in non-US Regions. Attach the policy to the root of the organization. This action will effectively prevent users and roles in all accounts within the organization from accessing services in non-US Regions12.
• B. Configure AWS CloudTrail to send logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs and enable it for all Regions. Use a CloudWatch Logs metric filter to send an alert on any service activity in non-US Regions. This action will allow monitoring of all AWS Regions and will trigger alerts if any activity is detected in non-US Regions, ensuring that the governance team is notified as soon as possible3.

References:

• AWS Documentation on Service Control Policies (SCPs) and how they can be used to manage permissions and restrict access based on Regions12.
• AWS Documentation on monitoring CloudTrail log files with Amazon CloudWatch Logs to set up alerts for specific activities3.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/config/latest/developerguide/ec2-instance-profile-attached.html

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/mt/aws-config-auto-remediation-s3-compliance/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-config-rules-dynamic-compliance-checking-for-cloud-resources/

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codepipeline/latest/userguide/reference-pipeline-structure.html

AWS doc: "To specify parallel actions, use the same integer for each action you want to run in parallel. For example, if you want three actions to run in sequence in a stage, you would give the first action the runOrder value of 1, the second action the runOrder value of 2, and the third the runOrder value of 3. However, if you want the second and third actions to run in parallel, you would give the first action the runOrder value of 1 and both the second and third actions the runOrder value of 2."

Amazon GuardDuty is primarily on threat detection and response, not configuration monitoring A conformance pack is a collection of AWS Config rules and remediation actions that can be easily deployed as a single entity in an account and a Region or across an organization in AWS Organizations. https://docs.aws.amazo n.com/config/latest/developerguide/conformance-packs.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/config/latest/dev eloperguide/s3-account-level-public-access-blocks.html

Verified Answer: A, C, and E.

Short Explanation: To improve the performance of the application, the DevOps engineer should use Amazon RDS Proxy, implement the database connection opening outside the Lambda event handler code, and connect to the proxy endpoint from the Lambda function.

References:

• Amazon RDS Proxy is a fully managed, highly available database proxy for Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) that makes applications more scalable, more resilient to database failures, and more secure1. By using Amazon RDS Proxy, the DevOps engineer can reduce the overhead of opening and closing connections to the database, which can improve latency and throughput2.
• The DevOps engineer should connect the proxy to the Aurora cluster reader endpoint, which allows read-only connections to one of the Aurora Replicas in the DB cluster3. This can help balance the load across multiple read replicas and improve performance for read-intensive workloads4.
• The DevOps engineer should implement the database connection opening outside the Lambda event handler code, which means using a global variable to store the database connection object5. This can enable connection reuse across multiple invocations of the Lambda function, which can reduce latency and improve performance.
• The DevOps engineer should connect to the proxy endpoint from the Lambda function, which is a unique URL that represents the proxy. This can allow the Lambda function to access the database through the proxy, which can provide benefits such as connection pooling, load balancing, failover handling, and enhanced security.
• The other options are incorrect because:

Creating an AWS CodeCommit repository for each project, using the main branch for production code, and creating a testing branch for code deployed to testing will meet the requirements. AWS CodeCommit is a managed revision control service that hosts Git repositories and works with all Git-based tools1. By using feature branches to develop new features and pull requests to merge code to testing and main branches, the developers can avoid code conflicts and lost work, and also implement code reviews and approvals. Option B is incorrect because creating another S3 bucket for each project for testing code and using an AWS Lambda function to promote code changes between testing and production buckets will not provide the benefits of revision control, such as tracking changes, branching, merging, and collaborating. Option C is incorrect because using the main branch for production and test code with different deployment pipelines for each environment will not allow the developers to test their code changes before deploying them to production. Option D is incorrect because enabling versioning and branching on each S3 bucket will not work with Git-based tools and will not provide the same level of revision control as AWS CodeCommit. References:

• AWS CodeCommit
• Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional (DOP-C02) Study Guide (page 182)

https://docs.aws.amazon.co m/AmazonECS/latest/developerguide/ecs-logging-monitoring.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/tutorial_cross-account-with-roles.html

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/lambda-function-assume-iam-role/ https://kreuzwerker.de/post/aws-multi-account-setups-reloaded

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/patch-manager-how-it-works-alt-source-repository.html

• Option A is incorrect because S3 event notifications do not support s3.ObjectTagging:Put events. S3 event notifications only support events related to object creation, deletion, replication, and restore. Moreover, enabling bucket versioning on the S3 bucket is not relevant to the tagging requirements, as it only keeps multiple versions of objects in the bucket.
• Option B is incorrect because enabling server access logging on the S3 bucket does not help with tagging the resources. Server access logging only records requests for access to the bucket or its objects. It does not capture the user ID or the cost center ID of the resources. Furthermore, creating an S3 event notification on the S3 bucket for s3.ObjectTagging:Put events is not possible, as explained in option A.
• Option C is incorrect because creating a recurring hourly Amazon EventBridge scheduled rule that invokes the Lambda function is not efficient or timely. The Lambda function would have to read the logs from the S3 bucket every hour and tag the resources accordingly, which could incur unnecessary costs and delays. A better solution would be to trigger the Lambda function as soon as a resource is created, rather than waiting for an hourly schedule.
• Option D is correct because creating an Amazon EventBridge rule that uses Amazon EC2 as the event source and matches events delivered by CloudTrail is a valid way to tag the resources. CloudTrail records all API calls made to AWS services, including EC2, and delivers them as events to EventBridge. The EventBridge rule can filter the events based on the user ID and the resource type, and then target the Lambda function to tag the resources with the cost center ID. This solution meets the tagging requirements in a timely and efficient manner.

References:

• S3 event notifications
• Server access logging
• Amazon EventBridge rules
• AWS CloudTrail

This solution will meet the requirements because it will use a rolling restart to gradually replace the EC2 instances in the green environment with new instances that have the new software version installed. A rolling restart is a process that terminates and launches instances in batches, ensuring that there is always a minimum number of healthy instances in service. This way, the green environment can be updated without affecting the availability or performance of the application. When the rolling restart is complete, the DevOps engineer can use an AWS CLI command to modify the listener rules of the ALB and change the default action to forward traffic to the green environment’s target group. This will switch the traffic from the blue environment to the green environment all at once, as required by the question.

The following are the steps that the DevOps engineer should take to ensure that all EBS volumes always have the Backup_Frequency tag so that the company can perform backups at least weekly unless a different value is specified:

• Set up AWS Config in the account.
• Use a managed rule that returns a compliance failure for EC2::Volume resources that do not have a Backup Frequency tag applied.
• Configure a remediation action that uses a custom AWS Systems Manager Automation runbook to apply the Backup_Frequency tag with a value of weekly.

The managed rule AWS::Config::EBSVolumesWithoutBackupTag will return a compliance failure for any EBS volume that does not have the Backup_Frequency tag applied. The remediation action will then use the Systems Manager Automation runbook to apply the Backup_Frequency tag with a value of weekly to the EBS volume.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/metrics-collected-by-CloudWatch-agent.html

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/mt/how-to-centrally-manage-aws-iot-greengrass-devices-using-aws-systems-manager/?force_isolation=t rue

"AWS CodeArtifact operates in multiple Availability Zones and stores artifact data and metadata in Amazon S3 and Amazon DynamoDB. Your encrypted data is redundantly stored across multiple facilities and multiple devices in each facility, making it highly available and highly durable." https://aws.amazon.com/codeartifact/features/ With no internet connectivity, a gateway endpoint becomes necessary to access S3.

The correct answer is C.

A comprehensive and detailed explanation is:

• Option A is incorrect because using CloudWatch metrics to create a custom expression that identifies the CloudWatch log groups that have the most data being written to them is not a valid solution. CloudWatch metrics do not provide information about the size or volume of data being ingested by CloudWatch logs. CloudWatch metrics only provide information about the number of events, bytes, and errors that occur within a log group or stream. Moreover, creating a custom expression with CloudWatch metrics would require using the search_web tool, which is not necessary for this use case.
• Option B is incorrect because using CloudWatch Logs Insights to create a set of queries for the application log groups to identify the number of logs written for a period of time is not a valid solution. CloudWatch Logs Insights can help analyze and filter log events based on patterns and expressions, but it does not provide information about the cost or billing of CloudWatch logs. CloudWatch Logs Insights also charges based on the amount of data scanned by each query, which could increase the logging costs further.
• Option C is correct because using AWS Cost Explorer to generate a cost report that details the cost for CloudWatch usage is a valid solution. AWS Cost Explorer is a tool that helps visualize, understand, and manage AWS costs and usage over time. AWS Cost Explorer can generate custom reports that show the breakdown of costs by service, region, account, tag, or any other dimension. AWS Cost Explorer can also filter and group costs by usage type, which can help identify the specific CloudWatch log groups that are the source of the increased logging costs.
• Option D is incorrect because using AWS CloudTrail to filter for CreateLogStream events for each application is not a valid solution. AWS CloudTrail is a service that records API calls and account activity for AWS services, including CloudWatch logs. However, AWS CloudTrail does not provide information about the cost or billing of CloudWatch logs. Filtering for CreateLogStream events would only show when a new log stream was created within a log group, but not how much data was ingested or stored by that log stream.

References:

• CloudWatch Metrics
• CloudWatch Logs Insights
• AWS Cost Explorer
• AWS CloudTrail

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/mt/org-aggregator-delegated-admin/ https://docs.aws.amazon.com/organizations/latest/userguide/services-that-can-integrate-config.html

The following are the steps involved in accomplishing this in the most maintainable manner:

• Use AWS CodeBuild with artifact encryption to replace the Jenkins instance running on EC2 instances.
• Configure CodeBuild to encrypt the build artifacts using AWS Secrets Manager.
• Deploy the containerized quality control applications to CodeBuild.

This approach is the most maintainable because it eliminates the need to manage Jenkins on EC2 instances. CodeBuild is a managed service, so the DevOps engineer does not need to worry about patching or upgrading the service.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codebuild/latest/userguide/security-encryption.html Build artifact encryption - CodeBuild requires access to an AWS KMS CMK in order to encrypt its build output artifacts. By default, CodeBuild uses an AWS Key Management Service CMK for Amazon S3 in your AWS account. If you do not want to use this CMK, you must create and configure a customer-managed CMK. For more information Creating keys.

This solution will meet the requirements in the most operationally efficient manner because it will use CloudWatch Logs destination to aggregate the log groups from all the accounts to a single S3 bucket in the logging account. However, unlike option A, this solution will create a CloudWatch Logs destination for each region, instead of a single destination for all regions. This will improve the performance and reliability of the log delivery, as it will avoid cross-region data transfer and latency issues. Moreover, this solution will use an Amazon Kinesis data stream and an Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream for each region, instead of a single stream for all regions. This will also improve the scalability and throughput of the log delivery, as it will avoid bottlenecks and throttling issues that may occur with a single stream.

To meet the requirements of migrating its on-premises Windows and Linux applications to AWS and creating a pilot light DR environment in another AWS Region, the company should use Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP for the application storage. Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is a fully managed service that provides highly reliable, scalable, high-performing, and feature-rich file storage built on NetApp’s popular ONTAP file system. FSx for ONTAP supports multiple protocols, including SMB for Windows and NFS for Linux, so the company can access the shared storage from both types of applications. FSx for ONTAP also supports NetApp SnapMirror replication, which enables the company to replicate the storage to the DR Region. NetApp SnapMirror replication is efficient, secure, and incremental, and it preserves the data deduplication and compression benefits of FSx for ONTAP. The company can use automation to launch and configure the EC2 instances in the DR Region and then use NetApp SnapMirror to restore the data from the primary Region.

The other options are not correct because they do not meet the requirements or follow best practices. Using Amazon S3 for the application storage is not a good option because S3 is an object storage service that does not support SMB or NFS protocols natively. The company would need to use additional services or software to mount S3 buckets as file systems, which would add complexity and cost. Using Amazon EBS for the application storage is also not a good option because EBS is a block storage service that does not support SMB or NFS protocols natively. The company would need to set up and manage file servers on EC2 instances to provide shared access to the EBS volumes, which would add overhead and maintenance. Using a Volume Gateway in AWS Storage Gateway for the application storage is not a valid option because Volume Gateway does not support SMB protocol. Volume Gateway only supports iSCSI protocol, which means that only Linux applications can access the shared storage.

References:

• 1: What is Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP? - FSx for ONTAP
• 2: Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP
• 3: Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP | NetApp
• 4: AWS Announces General Availability of Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP
• : Replicating Data with NetApp SnapMirror - FSx for ONTAP
• : What Is Amazon S3? - Amazon Simple Storage Service
• : What Is Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)? - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
• : What Is AWS Storage Gateway? - AWS Storage Gateway