Jeff’s Note #
Unlike generic exam dumps, ADH analyzes this scenario through the lens of a Real-World Site Reliability Engineer (SRE).
For SOA-C02 candidates, the confusion often lies in distinguishing between global service status versus account-impact notifications. In production, this is about knowing exactly which AWS health tool provides tailored insights on your organization’s affected resources during events. Let’s drill down.
The Certification Drill (Simulated Question) #
Scenario #
Nimbus Logistics operates a global freight tracking platform on AWS. Recently, the SRE team needs to rapidly identify which organizational resources may be impacted when AWS experiences infrastructure events such as outages or degraded performance. The team wants to leverage AWS tools that offer specific insights relevant to their AWS accounts and resources across multiple regions.
The Requirement #
Select the AWS service that enables Nimbus Logistics’ SREs to view detailed information about which organization-level resources are impacted by AWS events, rather than generic public service statuses.
The Options #
- A) AWS Service Health Dashboard
- B) AWS Trusted Advisor
- C) AWS Personal Health Dashboard
- D) AWS Systems Manager
Google adsense #
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Correct Answer #
C) AWS Personal Health Dashboard
Quick Insight: The SRE Imperative #
- For SysOps: Knowing the difference between AWS-wide status (Service Health Dashboard) and personalized, account-specific health events (Personal Health Dashboard) is crucial for efficient incident response.
- The Personal Health Dashboard integrates with AWS Organizations to show events affecting your accounts and resources — essential for pinpointing impact during outages.
Content Locked: The Expert Analysis #
You’ve identified the answer. But do you know the implementation details that separate a Junior from a Senior?
The Expert’s Analysis #
Correct Answer #
Option C: AWS Personal Health Dashboard
The Winning Logic #
The AWS Personal Health Dashboard (PHD) provides personalized alerts and remediation guidance about AWS events that directly impact your specific AWS resources and accounts. For organizations using AWS Organizations, it aggregates events across all member accounts, giving a consolidated view of affected resources. This is critical for an SRE trying to quickly identify issues specifically impacting their fleet of infrastructure.
- AWS Service Health Dashboard (Option A) shows the generalized status of AWS services globally and regionally but does not reflect your account-specific resource impact.
- AWS Trusted Advisor (Option B) provides best practice checks on security, fault tolerance, and cost optimization, but it does not report ongoing infrastructure event status.
- AWS Systems Manager (Option D) manages operational tasks and automation but does not provide consolidated AWS service health information.
The Trap (Distractor Analysis) #
- Why not (A) Service Health Dashboard?
Although it shows service availability trends and current issues, it is public-facing and lacks insight into whether your resources are affected. - Why not (B) Trusted Advisor?
Trusted Advisor is advisory, not an incident alert tool. It focuses on compliance checks rather than event impact. - Why not (D) Systems Manager?
Systems Manager is for operations automation, patching, and resource management — it doesn’t report AWS event states.
The Technical Blueprint #
# Example CLI command to get health events for your account via the AWS CLI:
aws health describe-events --filter eventStatusCodes=open
# To scope to affected entities:
aws health describe-affected-entities --filter eventArns=<event-ARN>
For organizational-wide visibility, AWS Health API integrates with AWS Organizations to surface cross-account health events.
The Comparative Analysis #
| Option | Operational Overhead | Automation Level | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| A) AWS Service Health Dashboard | Low | None | Global service status, no account context |
| B) AWS Trusted Advisor | Moderate | Manual/Automated Checks | No incident event reporting |
| C) AWS Personal Health Dashboard | Low | API/Console alerts | Directly alerts on your accounts/resources |
| D) AWS Systems Manager | High | Extensive | No AWS service health info |
Real-World Application (Practitioner Insight) #
Exam Rule #
For the exam, always pick AWS Personal Health Dashboard when the question centers on viewing impacted resources during AWS events in the context of an AWS organization or account-specific scenario.
Real World #
In practice, you might complement PHD with Systems Manager Automation or CloudWatch Alarms to respond automatically once an event is detected, but PHD remains the authoritative source for affected resource visibility.
(CTA) Stop Guessing, Start Mastering #
Disclaimer
This is a study note based on simulated scenarios for the SOA-C02 exam.