CloudWatch and monitoring

Question 1

A web application on EC2 experiences unpredictable traffic spikes. The team needs to be notified when CPU usage exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which solution implements this with LOWEST operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Create CloudWatch Alarm based on CPUUtilization metric with 1-minute period and 5 datapoints

Answer

Configure cron script on EC2 checking CPU every minute and sending email

Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager with custom automation document

Answer

Implement Lambda querying CloudWatch Metrics API every minute

Question 2

An application generates application logs in local files on EC2. The architect needs to centralize these logs in CloudWatch Logs for analysis. Which component must be installed on EC2 instances to automatically collect logs?

Accepted Answer

CloudWatch Agent with log collection configuration

Answer

AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) only

Answer

AWS Inspector Agent for log forwarding

Answer

AWS X-Ray Daemon for trace collection

Question 3

A DevOps team needs to analyze millions of log lines in CloudWatch Logs to identify error patterns and extract statistics. Which service allows running SQL-like queries with HIGHEST speed and LOWEST complexity?

Accepted Answer

CloudWatch Logs Insights with specific query language

Answer

Amazon Athena querying logs exported to S3

Answer

AWS Glue ETL jobs processing CloudWatch Logs

Answer

Amazon OpenSearch Service ingesting logs via stream

Question 4

A critical application needs to execute automatic actions when certain AWS events occur (e.g., new EC2 instance launched, S3 changes, custom events). Which service allows creating event-driven rules with HIGHEST flexibility and scalability?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EventBridge (CloudWatch Events) with rules and targets

Answer

CloudWatch Alarms with SNS actions

Answer

AWS Step Functions with event triggers

Answer

CloudWatch Logs subscription filters

Question 5

A company needs to retain CloudWatch Logs indefinitely for compliance requirements but wants to minimize costs. Which strategy optimizes costs for long-term log retention?

Accepted Answer

Export logs periodically to S3 with Lifecycle Policy to Glacier

Answer

Configure CloudWatch Logs retention period to 'Never Expire'

Answer

Use CloudWatch Logs Insights to compress old logs

Answer

Configure log replication to Aurora database

Question 6

An architect needs to monitor RAM memory usage and disk space of EC2 instances, but these metrics don't appear in CloudWatch by default. What is required to obtain these metrics? (Select TWO)

Accepted Answer

Answer

Install and configure CloudWatch Agent on EC2 instances

Answer

Enable Detailed Monitoring (1-minute intervals) on EC2

Answer

Create Custom Metrics configuration in CloudWatch Agent

Answer

Activate Enhanced Monitoring in EC2 console

Answer

Modify instance type to instance with advanced monitoring

Question 7

A serverless application uses multiple Lambda functions. The team needs to process logs in real-time to detect errors and send them to external system. Which CloudWatch Logs feature enables real-time processing with LOWEST latency?

Accepted Answer

CloudWatch Logs Subscription Filters with Lambda/Kinesis destination

Answer

Scheduled CloudWatch Logs Insights queries

Answer

CloudWatch Logs Export to S3 with S3 Event Notifications

Answer

EventBridge rules monitoring CloudWatch Logs

Question 8

An application monitors a critical custom metric. Immediate notification is needed if the metric doesn't receive datapoints for 10 minutes (indicates service failure). Which CloudWatch alarm type handles this scenario?

Accepted Answer

Alarm with missing data treatment configured as 'breaching'

Answer

Standard Alarm with static threshold of zero value

Answer

Composite Alarm combining multiple metrics

Answer

Anomaly Detection Alarm to detect abnormal behavior

Question 9

An executive team needs a centralized dashboard showing key metrics from multiple AWS regions and accounts. Which CloudWatch Dashboards characteristics support this? (Select TWO)

Accepted Answer

Answer

Cross-region dashboards showing metrics from multiple regions

Answer

Cross-account dashboards with appropriate IAM roles

Answer

Real-time streaming of metrics with auto-refresh every second

Answer

Dashboards require all metrics be in same region

Answer

Automatic dashboard generation with ML

Question 10

An application experiences variable latencies. The team needs to automatically identify when latency is outside normal range based on historical patterns. Which CloudWatch feature uses machine learning for this?

Accepted Answer

CloudWatch Anomaly Detection to create dynamic bands of expected values

Answer

CloudWatch Logs Insights with percentile queries

Answer

CloudWatch Metric Math to calculate standard deviations

Answer

CloudWatch Composite Alarms combining multiple thresholds