SAP-C03 practice question: Tagging, cost categories and chargeback
Cost-Optimized Architecture Design A free question from our original SAP-C03 practice exam. Try it, then open the answer to see why each option is right or wrong.
A retailer runs 40 AWS accounts in one organization. Its commerce, marketing and logistics business units each need a monthly charge-back, and the platform team runs one shared Amazon EKS cluster in a single account for all three units.
The shared cluster's cost must be split by the namespaces each unit runs in, and the charge-back must cover accounts that are owned by one unit only. The finance team wants the split to appear in the normal billing data, with no spreadsheets.
Which solution meets these requirements?
Choose one answer.
AA. Create an AWS Budgets budget for each business unit's expected spend, and have each unit's manager reconcile its share of the shared cluster's cost against the budget each month.
BB. Apply tag policies in Organizations that require a business-unit tag on every resource, and use the tag values to group the bill in Cost Explorer.
CC. Create one account per business unit and move the shared cluster into its own account, so that the account's cost is the cluster's charge-back.
DD. Create cost categories that map each unit's accounts and tags, and turn on split cost allocation data for EKS so the cluster's cost is split by namespace in the billing data.
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: D
A. Wrong: Budgets alerts warn when spend crosses a threshold, but they do not allocate the cluster's cost to the units. The reconciliation would be manual.
B. Wrong: Tag policies standardize tags on resources, but the shared cluster's EC2 instances run pods for all three units, so no single tag value describes their cost. The cluster's cost would stay in one undivided line.
C. Wrong: A separate account does not split the cost of the cluster among the three units, and the units still share the same cluster. The option creates a new allocation problem.
D. Right: Correct. Cost categories group the accounts and tags for each business unit, and split cost allocation data divides the shared EKS cost by namespace. The split appears in the cost and usage data, so finance needs no spreadsheets.
Explanation
Cost categories map each business unit's accounts and tags, and split cost allocation for EKS divides the shared cluster's cost by namespace in the billing data. Budgets, tag policies and a separate account each leave the shared cost unallocated.
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