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Difficulty: HardIdentify design principles of the AWS Cloud

A media company is migrating its sports analytics platform to AWS. The platform experiences intense, unpredictable traffic surges during live sporting events, which last for a few hours, followed by long periods of inactive user traffic. To manage costs, the operations team configures the system to automatically provision additional compute instances as traffic rises, and automatically terminate those instances as soon as the event ends and traffic subsides.

Which AWS Cloud design principle is directly demonstrated by this design, and how does it distinctively differ from scalability?

  1. A
    Scalability, which focuses on the automatic distribution of incoming application traffic across multiple target instances to prevent any single instance from becoming overloaded.
  2. B
    Design for failure, which focuses on the automatic provisioning of duplicate resources in separate Availability Zones to ensure uninterrupted operation if an entire data center fails.
  3. Elasticity, which focuses on the dynamic matching of resource supply to fluctuating demand, including the automatic reduction of capacity during low-traffic periods to optimize cost.Answer
  4. D
    Disposable resources, which focuses on the automated configuration and deployment of virtual servers using predefined code templates to eliminate configuration drift.

Answer

Elasticity, which focuses on the dynamic matching of resource supply to fluctuating demand, including the automatic reduction of capacity during low-traffic periods to optimize cost.
The correct answer is the choice describing elasticity. Elasticity is the design principle that refers to matching resource supply directly to fluctuating demand, enabling automatic resource expansion and contraction to minimize cost. Scalability is the ability to handle increased load but does not focus on shrinking capacity to save costs.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the workload pattern.
The platform experiences brief, unpredictable traffic spikes during events, followed by long idle periods.
Understanding traffic patterns is necessary to determine the appropriate resource management strategy.
2
Identify the primary operational and cost goals.
The goal is to automatically add capacity during surges and remove capacity when idle to reduce costs.
Selecting a design principle requires aligning the technical solution with the business goals of cost efficiency and availability.
3
Differentiate between elasticity and scalability.
Elasticity dynamically scales capacity up and down to match demand, while scalability is the ability to scale up/out to handle growth.
This distinction ensures that the correct AWS principle is identified for dynamic contraction of resources.

Key Concept

AWS Cloud design principles focus on elasticity to match resources to demand dynamically, helping to optimize costs compared to traditional, statically provisioned infrastructure.
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Identify design principles of the AWS Cloud

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