AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 519

A company wants to add its existing AWS usage cost to its operation cost dashboard. A solutions architect needs to recommend a solution that will give the company access to its usage cost programmatically. The company must be able to access cost data for the current year and forecast costs for the next 12 months.

Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?

Answer options

• A. Access usage cost-related data by using the AWS Cost Explorer API with pagination.
• B. Access usage cost-related data by using downloadable AWS Cost Explorer report .csv files.
• C. Configure AWS Budgets actions to send usage cost data to the company through FTP.
• D. Create AWS Budgets reports for usage cost data. Send the data to the company through SMTP.

Correct answer: A

Explanation

The AWS Cost Explorer API provides direct, programmatic access to historical cost data and future forecasts for up to 12 months, making it the most efficient way to feed an external dashboard. Other options, such as downloading CSV files or setting up FTP/SMTP transfers, require significant manual effort or custom scripting to parse and ingest the data. Using the native API with pagination minimizes operational overhead while meeting all functional requirements.