SAA-C03 Exam Dumps - AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate (SAA-C03)

To securely access AWS services like S3 and Secrets Manager from a private VPC without using public IPs, interface VPC endpoints are required. These endpoints are accessible via private IP addresses. For the application to reach these endpoints, appropriate routes must be configured in the route table.

According to the AWS Well-Architected Framework – Security Pillar and the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) User Guide, the root user account in an AWS account is extremely powerful and should be protected with strict security measures.

From AWS documentation:

“We recommend that you not use the root user for everyday tasks, even administrative ones. Instead, create IAM users and grant them only the permissions they need. To help protect your AWS account, enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for the root user.”

(Source: AWS Identity and Access Management User Guide – Securing the Root User)

The correct and recommended action is to create IAM users with specific permissions for daily operations and enable MFA on the root user to provide an additional layer of security. The root user cannot be disabled, so Option A is technically incorrect. AWS also explicitly advises against using root access keys (Option C) or sharing root credentials (Option D), both of which violate the principle of least privilege.

Best practices summarized from AWS official documentation:

Do not use root user for routine tasks

Enable MFA for root user immediately

Create individual IAM users and assign least privilege

Avoid creating or using root user access keys

These recommendations are foundational to securing any new AWS account and are consistently emphasized in the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Official Study Guide and the AWS Security Best Practices whitepaper.

AWS documentation states that Amazon Macie is the managed service designed to automatically identify and classify sensitive data stored in Amazon S3, including PII and healthcare-related identifiers.

Storing logs in Amazon S3 provides scalable, durable storage, and Amazon Athena can directly query JSON data stored in S3 using SQL.

Amazon Inspector (Option D) is for vulnerability scanning and does not identify sensitive data. DynamoDB with KMS (Option C) cannot detect sensitive information. EBS (Option B) requires custom tooling and does not support serverless SQL querying.

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AWS Service Catalogallows organizations to centrally manage commonly deployed IT services and offers self-service deployment capabilities to customers. By creatingService Catalog products, the consulting company can package their solutions and tools for easy reuse by customers while maintaining central control over configuration and access. This provides a standardized and automated solution with the least operational overhead for managing and deploying solutions across different customers.

Option A (CloudFormation): CloudFormation templates are useful but don't provide the same level of management and user-friendly self-service capabilities as Service Catalog.

Option C (Systems Manager): Systems Manager is more focused on managing infrastructure and doesn't offer the same self-service capabilities.

Option D (AWS Config): AWS Config is used for tracking resource configurations, not for deploying solutions.

AWS References:

AWS Service Catalog

Apresigned URLallows temporary access to a specific object in an S3 bucket without needing to make the bucket public or creating and managing additional IAM users. The URL is time-limited, and permissions are granted only to the specific object (in this case, the annual report), making it a highly secure and operationally efficient solution.

With a presigned URL, the consultant can access the report for the specified duration (7 days), after which the URL will expire automatically, removing the need for manual intervention to revoke access.

AWS References:

Amazon S3 Presigned URLsexplain how to generate a presigned URL to grant temporary access to S3 objects.

Best Practices for S3 Securityemphasize using presigned URLs for sharing temporary access to S3 objects securely.

Why the other options are incorrect:

A. Public static website: This approach involves making the S3 bucket publicly accessible, which is unnecessary and insecure for sensitive data.

B. Enable public access: Granting public access to the entire bucket, even temporarily, is a security risk and violates best practices.

C. Create an IAM user: Creating an IAM user and managing credentials is unnecessary overhead and less secure compared to a presigned URL for this short-term need.

Comprehensive and Detailed Step-by-Step Explanation:

To accurately charge customers based on their monthly data download usage, the following solution is recommended:

Structured Logging Configuration:

Action:Ensure that the AWS Transfer for SFTP server is configured to log user activity, including details about file downloads, to Amazon S3 in a structured format.

Implementation:Utilize AWS Transfer Family's structured logging feature to capture detailed information about user sessions, including actions performed and data transferred.

docs.aws.amazon.com

Justification:Structured logs provide comprehensive data necessary for analyzing customer-specific download activities.

Data Analysis with Amazon Athena:

Action:Use Amazon Athena to run SQL queries on the structured log data stored in the S3 bucket to calculate the amount of data each customer has downloaded.

Implementation:

a.Define a Schema:Create a table in Athena that maps to the structure of your log files. This involves specifying the format of the logs and the location in S3.

b.Query Data:Write SQL queries to sum the total bytes downloaded by each customer over the billing period. This can be achieved by filtering logs based on user identifiers and summing the data transfer amounts.

Justification:Athena allows for efficient querying

AWS CloudFormationallows for the automated, repeatable setup of infrastructure, reducing human error and ensuring consistency.AWS Configprovides the ability to track changes in the infrastructure, ensuring that all changes are logged and auditable, which satisfies the requirement for tracking incremental changes.

Option A and C (AWS Organizations): AWS Organizations manage multiple accounts, but they are not designed for infrastructure setup or change tracking.

Option D (Service Catalog): Service Catalog is used for deploying products, not for setting up infrastructure or tracking changes.

AWS References:

AWS Config

AWS CloudFormation

When designing a microservice architecture where each microservice interacts with different AWS services, it's essential to follow the principle of least privilege. This means granting each microservice only the permissions it needs to perform its tasks, reducing the risk of unauthorized access or accidental actions.

The recommended approach is to create individualIAM roleswith policies that grant each microservice the specific permissions it requires. Then, these roles should be associated with the EC2 instances that run the corresponding microservice. By doing so, each EC2 instance will assume its specific IAM role, and permissions will be automatically managed by AWS.

IAM roles provide temporary credentials via the instance metadata service, eliminating the need to hard-code credentials in your application code, which enhances security.

AWS References:

IAM Roles for Amazon EC2explains how EC2 instances can use IAM roles to securely access AWS services without managing long-term credentials.

Best Practices for IAMincludes recommendations for implementing the least privilege principle and using IAM roles effectively.

Why the other options are incorrect:

A. Assign an IAM user to each microservice: This requires managing long-term credentials (access keys), which should be avoided. Storing keys in application code is insecure and creates a maintenance burden.

B. Create a single IAM role: This violates the principle of least privilege, as a single role with broad permissions across all services is less secure.

C. Use AWS Organizations: This approach adds unnecessary complexity. Managing permissions at the account level for each microservice is excessive for this use case and doesn't adhere to the principle of least privilege.