Budgets and cost anomaly detection in AWS - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

Understanding AWS Budgets Thresholds

You set an AWS budget with a threshold of 80% for your monthly cost. What happens when your actual cost reaches 85% of the budget?

A Your budget resets immediately to zero and starts a new cycle.

B You receive a notification alerting you that you have exceeded 80% of your budget.

C AWS automatically stops all running resources to prevent overspending.

D No action occurs until the budget reaches 100%.

💡 Hint

Think about what AWS Budgets are designed to do regarding notifications.

AWS Budgets send alerts when thresholds are crossed but do not stop resources or reset budgets automatically.

❓ service_behavior

intermediate

AWS Cost Anomaly Detection Behavior

You have enabled AWS Cost Anomaly Detection for your account. What is the primary behavior of this service?

A It automatically fixes cost anomalies by shutting down resources.

B It deletes unused resources to reduce costs.

C It detects unusual spending patterns and sends alerts for investigation.

D It increases your budget limits automatically when anomalies are detected.

💡 Hint

Consider what anomaly detection tools usually do in monitoring systems.

AWS Cost Anomaly Detection identifies unusual spending and notifies you; it does not take automatic corrective actions.

❓ Configuration

advanced

Configuring an AWS Budget with Multiple Thresholds

You want to create an AWS budget that sends notifications at 50%, 80%, and 100% of your monthly cost limit. Which JSON snippet correctly defines these thresholds in the AWS Budgets configuration?

A { "BudgetLimit": { "Amount": "1000", "Unit": "USD" }, "Notifications": [ { "Threshold": 50, "ComparisonOperator": "GREATER_THAN", "NotificationType": "ACTUAL" }, { "Threshold": 80, "ComparisonOperator": "GREATER_THAN", "NotificationType": "ACTUAL" }, { "Threshold": 100, "ComparisonOperator": "GREATER_THAN", "NotificationType": "ACTUAL" } ] }

B { "BudgetLimit": { "Amount": "1000", "Unit": "USD" }, "Notifications": [ { "Threshold": "50%", "ComparisonOperator": "GREATER_THAN", "NotificationType": "ACTUAL" }, { "Threshold": "80%", "ComparisonOperator": "GREATER_THAN", "NotificationType": "ACTUAL" }, { "Threshold": "100%", "ComparisonOperator": "GREATER_THAN", "NotificationType": "ACTUAL" } ] }

C { "BudgetLimit": { "Amount": "1000", "Unit": "USD" }, "Notifications": [ { "Threshold": 0.5, "ComparisonOperator": "GREATER_THAN", "NotificationType": "ACTUAL" }, { "Threshold": 0.8, "ComparisonOperator": "GREATER_THAN", "NotificationType": "ACTUAL" }, { "Threshold": 1.0, "ComparisonOperator": "GREATER_THAN", "NotificationType": "ACTUAL" } ] }

D { "BudgetLimit": { "Amount": "1000", "Unit": "USD" }, "Notifications": [ { "Threshold": 50, "ComparisonOperator": "LESS_THAN", "NotificationType": "ACTUAL" }, { "Threshold": 80, "ComparisonOperator": "LESS_THAN", "NotificationType": "ACTUAL" }, { "Threshold": 100, "ComparisonOperator": "LESS_THAN", "NotificationType": "ACTUAL" } ] }

💡 Hint

Threshold values should be numbers representing percentages without symbols, and comparison operator should detect when cost exceeds the threshold.

Thresholds are numeric percentages without percent signs. The comparison operator 'GREATER_THAN' triggers alerts when costs exceed thresholds.

❓ security

advanced

IAM Permissions for AWS Cost Anomaly Detection

Which IAM policy permission is required to allow a user to view AWS Cost Anomaly Detection findings but not modify them?

A "ce:DeleteAnomalySubscription"

B "ce:GetAnomalySubscriptions"

C "ce:UpdateAnomalySubscription"

D "ce:GetAnomalies"

💡 Hint

Think about permissions that allow reading data but not changing it.

"ce:GetAnomalies" allows viewing anomaly detection findings. Update or delete permissions allow modifications.

✅ Best Practice

expert

Optimizing Cost Anomaly Detection for Multiple Linked Accounts

You manage a consolidated billing family with multiple linked AWS accounts. To optimize cost anomaly detection across all accounts, which approach is best?

A Enable Cost Anomaly Detection only in the payer account to monitor all linked accounts centrally.

B Enable Cost Anomaly Detection separately in each linked account to get detailed alerts per account.

C Disable Cost Anomaly Detection and rely on manual cost reviews for linked accounts.

D Enable Cost Anomaly Detection in the payer account and also in each linked account for redundancy.

💡 Hint

Consider how consolidated billing and central monitoring work together.

Enabling Cost Anomaly Detection in the payer account allows centralized monitoring of all linked accounts efficiently.