Question

Difficulty: MediumCost-Optimized Compute Selection and Purchasing Strategies

A logistics company is migrating its operations platform to AWS. The workload consists of:

* A set of containerized web APIs running 24/7 on Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) using the AWS Fargate launch type.
* A fleet of Amazon EC2 instances performing continuous, stateful background queue processing.
* An Amazon RDS for MySQL database operating 24/7 to store transactional data.

The company wants to optimize its compute costs over a 1-year period while maintaining maximum flexibility for compute resource changes.

Which purchasing strategy will achieve the lowest cost while meeting these requirements?

  1. Purchase a Compute Savings Plan to cover the AWS Fargate tasks and Amazon EC2 instances, and purchase Amazon RDS Reserved Instances for the MySQL database.Answer
  2. B
    Purchase a Compute Savings Plan to cover the AWS Fargate tasks, Amazon EC2 instances, and the Amazon RDS MySQL database.
  3. C
    Migrate the continuous background queue processing workload from Amazon EC2 to AWS Lambda, and cover both the Lambda functions and AWS Fargate tasks with a Compute Savings Plan while keeping the database on On-Demand billing.
  4. D
    Purchase an EC2 Instance Savings Plan to cover both the Amazon EC2 instances and AWS Fargate tasks, and purchase Amazon RDS Reserved Instances for the MySQL database.

Answer

Purchase a Compute Savings Plan to cover the AWS Fargate tasks and Amazon EC2 instances, and purchase Amazon RDS Reserved Instances for the MySQL database.
The correct strategy combines a Compute Savings Plan (which dynamically covers both the Amazon EC2 instances and AWS Fargate tasks, providing flexibility across instance types and container configurations) with Amazon RDS Reserved Instances (which provide the required cost discounts for the 24/7 database since RDS is not covered by Compute Savings Plans).

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the compute requirements for the containerized web APIs running on AWS Fargate and the background queue processors running on Amazon EC2.
Identify that a Compute Savings Plan is the most flexible discount model that applies to both Amazon EC2 and AWS Fargate container tasks, automatically applying discounts to usage regardless of instance family, size, or region.
Since flexibility is required and the workloads run continuously, Compute Savings Plans provide the optimal balance of discount and adaptability for both EC2 and Fargate.
2
Evaluate the database tier running 24/7 on Amazon RDS for MySQL.
Recognize that Amazon RDS usage is not covered by Compute Savings Plans. To optimize a 24/7 database, Amazon RDS Reserved Instances must be purchased.
Compute Savings Plans only apply to EC2, Fargate, and Lambda. Database compute optimizations require RDS Reserved Instances.
3
Combine the purchasing strategies to cover the entire workload cost-effectively.
Pair the Compute Savings Plan for EC2 and Fargate with RDS Reserved Instances for the database.
This combination ensures all 24/7 running components receive significant commitment-based discounts while avoiding coverage gaps.

Key Concept

Compute Savings Plans versus Amazon RDS Reserved Instances scope and applicability
Estimated Time:1m 30s
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