An architect reviews a payments workload and finds three gaps.
Engineers have standing access to production customer data, some changes cannot be traced back to a named person, and several services share one administrator identity.
Which pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework contains the design principles that address these gaps?
Choose one answer.
AA. Reliability, covering recovery from failures and scaling to meet demand
BB. Security, covering identity, traceability and protecting data
CC. Operational Excellence, covering running and improving workloads through code and frequent change
DD. Cost Optimization, covering spending only on what the business needs
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: B
A. Wrong: Reliability covers recovering from failures and scaling to meet demand. Its principles would help availability, but not the access and traceability gaps described in the review.
C. Wrong: Operational Excellence covers running and improving workloads through code, small reversible changes and learning from events. Logging touches it, but the access gaps are primarily security principles.
D. Wrong: Cost Optimization covers controlling and measuring spend. Shared identities and standing access are not cost concerns, so this pillar does not contain the principles the architect needs.
Explanation
The three gaps match Security pillar design principles: implement a strong identity foundation, maintain traceability, and keep people away from data. Reliability, Operational Excellence and Cost Optimization cover other concerns, even though some of their practices touch on logging or change.
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