AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 271

As part of budget planning, management wants a report of AWS billed items listed by user. The data will be used to create department budgets. A solutions architect needs to determine the most efficient way to obtain this report information.

Which solution meets these requirements?

Answer options

• A. Run a query with Amazon Athena to generate the report.
• B. Create a report in Cost Explorer and download the report.
• C. Access the bill details from the billing dashboard and download the bill.
• D. Modify a cost budget in AWS Budgets to alert with Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES).

Correct answer: B

Explanation

AWS Cost Explorer is the most efficient tool for this task because it allows users to easily filter, group by tags (such as user or owner), and download cost and usage reports without complex setup. While Amazon Athena can query billing data, it requires configuring a Cost and Usage Report (CUR) and writing SQL, which is less efficient. The standard billing dashboard lacks the granular grouping capabilities needed, and AWS Budgets is used for monitoring thresholds rather than generating detailed user-based reports.