Question

Difficulty: EasyCost-Optimized Compute Selection and Purchasing Strategies

A startup runs a public web application on Amazon EC2 instances that requires a baseline capacity of four instances running 24/7 to handle steady-state traffic. The application writes to an Amazon DynamoDB table that experiences sudden, highly unpredictable spikes in database traffic. In addition, the startup runs daily batch processing jobs on AWS Fargate that are fault-tolerant and can be interrupted at any time.

Which combination of purchasing strategies should a solutions architect recommend to minimize compute costs for these workloads? (Select TWO.)

  1. Purchase a Compute Savings Plan to cover the steady-state EC2 instances.Answer
  2. Use AWS Fargate Spot for the batch processing workloads.Answer
  3. C
    Purchase a Compute Savings Plan to reduce the cost of the Amazon RDS database instances.
  4. D
    Migrate the 24/7 steady-state EC2 instances to AWS Lambda functions to eliminate idle compute costs.
  5. E
    Configure the Amazon DynamoDB table to use Provisioned Capacity mode to handle the unpredictable spiky traffic.

Answer

The solutions architect should purchase a Compute Savings Plan to cover the steady-state EC2 instances and use AWS Fargate Spot for the batch processing workloads.
Purchasing a Compute Savings Plan provides significant savings for the steady-state Amazon EC2 instances since they run continuously 24/7. Using AWS Fargate Spot is the most cost-effective choice for the batch processing workloads because they are fault-tolerant and can tolerate interruptions.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the steady-state EC2 workload running 24/7.
Identify that a Compute Savings Plan offers the best discount for continuous, predictable EC2 compute usage over a 1-year or 3-year term.
Compute Savings Plans provide significant savings for steady-state workloads compared to On-Demand rates.
2
Analyze the batch processing Fargate workload.
Identify that AWS Fargate Spot is the most cost-effective option since the jobs are fault-tolerant and can tolerate interruptions.
Spot pricing provides the deepest discounts for interruptible workloads.
3
Evaluate the database and capacity configurations for other components.
Exclude Compute Savings Plans for RDS database instances and eliminate Lambda for continuous 24/7 workloads to prevent high costs.
Compute Savings Plans do not cover RDS, and Lambda is not cost-effective for continuous 24/7 processing.

Key Concept

Selecting the most cost-effective compute purchasing model based on workload characteristics (steady-state vs. interruptible) and service boundaries.
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