AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner / Question #891 of 719

Question #891

Which AWS service enables the logging of IP traffic flows for network interfaces within an Amazon VPC to assist with troubleshooting connectivity issues and security analysis?

A

VPC Flow Logs

B

AWS CloudTrail

C

Amazon GuardDuty

D

VPC Peering

Explanation

The correct answer is A. VPC Flow Logs. VPC Flow Logs record metadata about IP traffic flowing through network interfaces in a VPC, including source/destination IPs, ports, protocols, and packet actions (ACCEPT/REJECT). This data is critical for diagnosing connectivity issues (e.g., misconfigured security groups or NACLs) and performing security audits.

Why other options are incorrect:
- B. AWS CloudTrail: Logs API calls and management events, not network traffic.
- C. Amazon GuardDuty: A threat detection service that analyzes logs (including VPC Flow Logs) but does not log traffic itself.
- D. VPC Peering: A networking feature for connecting VPCs, unrelated to logging.

Key Points:
- VPC Flow Logs are used for network monitoring and security analysis.
- Flow logs can be published to CloudWatch Logs or S3 for retention.
- Flow logs do not capture actual packet contents, only flow metadata.

Answer

The correct answer is: A