All practice questions

1462 questions

All types1,462 Multiple choice739 Multiple select723

An enterprise has deployed a data analysis pipeline in the us-east-1 Region across two VPCs. VPC A contains a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances in private subnets that download $30\text{ TB}$ of data monthly from an Amazon S3 bucket. Additionally, these instances transfer $10\text{ TB}$ of data monthly to a database cluster hosted in VPC B. Currently, all traffic from VPC A's private subnets to the internet and Amazon S3 is routed through a NAT Gateway in VPC A's public subnet. Inter-VPC traffic between VPC A and VPC B is routed via an AWS Transit Gateway. Which two network routing configurations should the solutions architect implement to minimize monthly data transfer and infrastructure costs? (Select TWO.)

Select all that apply

Create a gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 in VPC A, and associate it with the private subnet route tables.

Establish a VPC peering connection between VPC A and VPC B, and update the private subnet route tables to route VPC B traffic through the peering connection.

Create an interface VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 in VPC A, and update the private subnet route tables to direct S3 traffic through the interface endpoint.

Replace the NAT Gateway in VPC A with a self-managed NAT instance on an Amazon EC2 instance, and route all external traffic through the NAT instance.

Configure an AWS Site-to-Site VPN connection between VPC A and VPC B, and route VPC B traffic through the VPN connection.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Create a gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 in VPC A, and associate it with the private subnet route tables.; Establish a VPC peering connection between VPC A and VPC B, and update the private subnet route tables to route VPC B traffic through the peering connection.

Answer

Establish a VPC peering connection between VPC A and VPC B, and create a gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 in VPC A.

To minimize monthly costs, the S3 data transfer should bypass the NAT Gateway by utilizing a Gateway VPC Endpoint for S3, which is free of charge. The inter-VPC traffic should bypass the AWS Transit Gateway by establishing a VPC Peering connection, which has no hourly or data processing charges for same-region traffic, unlike Transit Gateway.

Step-by-Step Solution

Analyze S3 traffic cost

Routing

30\text{ TB}

of S3 traffic through a NAT Gateway incurs data processing charges of $0.045 per GB, totaling substantial monthly costs.

S3 traffic should bypass NAT Gateways to avoid unnecessary processing charges.

Select the optimal S3 access method

Creating a Gateway VPC Endpoint for S3 in VPC A is free, incurs no data processing fees, and provides a direct route to S3.

Gateway endpoints are the most cost-effective way to access S3 privately from a VPC.

Analyze inter-VPC traffic cost

Routing

10\text{ TB}

of data through AWS Transit Gateway incurs an hourly attachment charge and a data processing charge of $0.02 per GB.

Transit Gateway is suboptimal for simple same-region VPC-to-VPC routing of high volume data.

Select the optimal inter-VPC routing method

Establishing a VPC Peering connection between VPC A and VPC B is free and does not charge data processing fees for traffic within the same region.

VPC Peering eliminates the Transit Gateway hourly and processing fees.

Key Concept

Optimizing network costs by routing S3 traffic via Gateway VPC Endpoints and routing same-region inter-VPC traffic via VPC Peering rather than Transit Gateway or NAT Gateways.

Question 862Question →

A company runs a production web application where the compute tier is hosted on Amazon EC2 instances and the database tier is hosted on Amazon RDS. Both tiers run continuously 24/7. To reduce costs, the company decides to purchase a 1-year Compute Savings Plan.

Which of the following describes how this Compute Savings Plan will apply discounts to these resources?

The Compute Savings Plan will apply discounts to the Amazon EC2 instances, but it will not apply any discounts to the Amazon RDS database.

The Compute Savings Plan will apply discounts to both the Amazon EC2 instances and the Amazon RDS database.

The Compute Savings Plan will apply discounts to the Amazon RDS database, but the Amazon EC2 instances must use EC2 Instance Savings Plans to receive discounts.

The Compute Savings Plan will apply discounts to the Amazon RDS database only if the database is configured in a Multi-AZ deployment.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: The Compute Savings Plan will apply discounts to the Amazon EC2 instances, but it will not apply any discounts to the Amazon RDS database.

Answer

The Compute Savings Plan will apply discounts to the Amazon EC2 instances, but it will not apply any discounts to the Amazon RDS database.

Compute Savings Plans provide the most flexibility and apply automatically to EC2 instance usage, AWS Fargate, and AWS Lambda. They do not, however, apply to non-compute services such as Amazon RDS databases. Therefore, the EC2 instances will receive the discount, while the RDS database will not.

Step-by-Step Solution

Identify the resource types involved in the workload.

The workload consists of Amazon EC2 instances (compute tier) and Amazon RDS (database tier).

Understanding the specific AWS services being used is necessary to determine which savings or purchasing models can be applied.

Analyze the coverage scope of Compute Savings Plans.

Compute Savings Plans apply discounts to Amazon EC2, AWS Fargate, and AWS Lambda usage.

Compute Savings Plans are designed specifically for compute services and do not extend to database services like Amazon RDS.

Match the plan's scope with the company's resources to determine the application of discounts.

Discounts will apply to the EC2 compute instances, while the RDS database will continue to be billed at standard rates unless RDS Reserved Instances are purchased.

This allows for a cost-effective purchasing strategy for the compute tier while identifying that database costs must be optimized using database-specific models.

Key Concept

Compute Savings Plans apply strictly to AWS compute services (EC2, Fargate, and Lambda) and do not cover database services like Amazon RDS.

Question 863Question →

A financial technology firm is deploying a real-time transaction processing engine on Amazon EC2 instances distributed across three Availability Zones. The engine requires a shared file system to store and access transaction logs concurrently. The workload requires a file system that is POSIX-compliant, supports concurrent read/write operations from all instances, scales capacity automatically, and can scale throughput dynamically to handle peak loads up to $3\text{ GB/s}$ . Which storage solution should a solutions architect recommend to satisfy these requirements?

Amazon EBS gp3 volume with Multi-Attach enabled, formatted with a standard XFS file system.

Amazon EFS file system configured with Elastic Throughput mode.

Amazon EBS io2 volumes configured with EBS Multi-Attach and attached to all instances.

Amazon S3 bucket mounted on the instances using AWS Mountpoint for Amazon S3.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Amazon EFS file system configured with Elastic Throughput mode.

Answer

Amazon EFS file system configured with Elastic Throughput mode.

The correct option is the Amazon EFS file system configured with Elastic Throughput. Amazon EFS is a serverless, POSIX-compliant shared file system designed to span multiple Availability Zones. Elastic Throughput mode automatically adjusts the throughput performance to match dynamic workload demands up to

3\text{ GB/s}

or higher, without requiring manual capacity or performance provisioning.

Step-by-Step Solution

Identify the storage requirements from the scenario.

The requirements are: shared POSIX-compliant file access, multi-AZ deployment (three Availability Zones), concurrent read/write capabilities, automatic capacity scaling, and dynamic throughput scaling up to

3\text{ GB/s}

This establishes the constraints that the chosen storage service must satisfy.

Evaluate block storage (Amazon EBS) solutions.

Amazon EBS gp3 volumes do not support Multi-Attach. While io2 supports Multi-Attach, it is limited to a single Availability Zone and does not support automatic capacity scaling.

This rules out EBS-based solutions because the workload is distributed across three Availability Zones.

Evaluate object storage (Amazon S3) solutions.

Amazon S3 is not POSIX-compliant and does not support concurrent write updates or file locking, which makes it unsuitable for real-time transaction logging.

This rules out S3-based solutions.

Evaluate Amazon EFS with Elastic Throughput.

Amazon EFS natively supports multi-AZ POSIX-compliant concurrent access, scales capacity automatically, and Elastic Throughput dynamically handles performance peaks up to

3\text{ GB/s}

or more.

This configuration satisfies all architectural and performance requirements.

Key Concept

Amazon EFS provides a serverless, POSIX-compliant shared file system across multiple Availability Zones, with Elastic Throughput mode automatically scaling performance to meet dynamic, high-throughput demands.

Estimated Time:1m 30s

Question 864Question →

A healthcare provider runs a medical imaging application on Amazon EC2 instances within a private subnet. The application processes high-resolution MRI scans and archives approximately $5\text{ TB}$ of data weekly to an Amazon S3 bucket in the same AWS Region. Currently, the EC2 instances access Amazon S3 through a NAT Gateway, resulting in high data processing charges. The company wants to eliminate these NAT Gateway data processing charges while keeping the EC2 instances in the private subnet.

Which two actions should a solutions architect recommend to meet these requirements cost-effectively? (Select TWO.)

Select all that apply

Create a Gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 in the VPC.

Update the route tables associated with the private subnet to route traffic destined for Amazon S3 through the gateway endpoint.

Create an Interface VPC endpoint (AWS PrivateLink) for Amazon S3 in the private subnet.

Deploy an AWS Transit Gateway and configure it to route S3 traffic from the private subnet.

Provision a NAT instance in a public subnet and update the private subnet's route table to route S3 traffic through it.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Create a Gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 in the VPC.; Update the route tables associated with the private subnet to route traffic destined for Amazon S3 through the gateway endpoint.

Answer

Create a Gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 in the VPC and update the route tables associated with the private subnet to route traffic destined for Amazon S3 through the gateway endpoint.

To eliminate NAT Gateway data processing charges for traffic directed to Amazon S3 from private subnets in the same Region, a Gateway VPC endpoint should be created. Gateway VPC endpoints do not charge for data transfer or processing. Additionally, the route tables of the private subnets must be updated to route traffic destined for Amazon S3 through this gateway endpoint.

Step-by-Step Solution

Determine the source, destination, and current route of the data transfer.

The source is EC2 instances in a private subnet, the destination is Amazon S3 in the same Region, and they are routing through a NAT Gateway.

This establishes that the traffic is internal to AWS but currently incurs NAT Gateway data processing charges.

Evaluate alternative routing options to eliminate NAT Gateway fees.

Identify that Gateway VPC endpoints are free and do not charge for data transfer or processing, unlike Interface VPC endpoints or NAT Gateway/Transit Gateway options.

This determines the most cost-effective resource to connect to Amazon S3.

Configure the Gateway VPC endpoint and update the routing path.

Create the Gateway VPC endpoint and update the private subnet's route table to route S3-destined traffic through the endpoint.

This redirects traffic away from the NAT Gateway and directly to S3 at no additional cost.

Key Concept

Using Gateway VPC Endpoints for S3 is a free routing mechanism that avoids NAT Gateway data processing charges for traffic within the same region.

Estimated Time:1m 30s

Question 865Question →

A financial application stores monthly customer account statements (averaging $10\text{ MB}$ each) and daily transactional debug logs (averaging $50\text{ KB}$ each) in an Amazon S3 bucket. The account statements are accessed frequently during the first $30\text{ days}$ but are rarely accessed afterwards, and they must be retained for $7\text{ years}$ for auditing purposes. The debug logs are only needed for troubleshooting within $14\text{ days}$ of creation, after which they can be permanently deleted. Which TWO actions should a solutions architect configure in the S3 Lifecycle rules to meet these requirements in the most cost-effective manner? (Select TWO.)

Select all that apply

Configure a lifecycle rule to transition the customer account statements to Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) after $30\text{ days}.

Configure a lifecycle rule to expire the debug logs after

14\text{ days}

directly from Amazon S3 Standard.

Configure a lifecycle rule to transition the debug logs to Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) after

7\text{ days}

before deleting them.

Configure a lifecycle rule to transition the debug logs to Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval after

7\text{ days}

and delete them after $14\text{ days}.

Configure a lifecycle rule to transition the customer account statements to Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) after $10\text{ days}.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Configure a lifecycle rule to transition the customer account statements to Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) after $30\text{ days}.; Configure a lifecycle rule to expire the debug logs after$ 14\text{ days}$ directly from Amazon S3 Standard.

Answer

Configure a lifecycle rule to transition the customer account statements to Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) after

30\text{ days}

and configure a lifecycle rule to expire the debug logs after

14\text{ days}

directly from Amazon S3 Standard.

Transitioning customer account statements to Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) after

30\text{ days}

is correct because the statements are large (

10\text{ MB}

) and retained for a long period (

7\text{ years}

), meaning they will not trigger the minimum capacity charge or the minimum storage duration fee. Expiring the debug logs after

14\text{ days}

directly from S3 Standard is correct because at

50\text{ KB}

and with a

14\text{ day}

lifespan, they would incur early deletion penalties and minimum capacity charges if transitioned to S3 Standard-IA or Glacier.

Step-by-Step Solution

Analyze the size, access patterns, and retention requirement of the customer account statements.

The statements are

10\text{ MB}

(greater than the

128\text{ KB}

minimum size limit), are frequently accessed for only

30\text{ days}

, and must be stored for

7\text{ years}

(longer than the

30\text{ days}

minimum duration limit). S3 Standard-IA is the most cost-effective tier after

30\text{ days}

because it offers lower storage costs without early transition or deletion penalties.

To identify the optimal lifecycle transition timing and tier for the account statements.

Analyze the size, access patterns, and retention requirement of the debug logs.

The debug logs are

50\text{ KB}

(less than the

128\text{ KB}

minimum capacity charge for S3 Standard-IA) and are deleted after

14\text{ days}

(less than the

30\text{ days}

minimum storage duration for S3 Standard-IA and

90\text{ days}

for S3 Glacier).

To evaluate if the debug logs meet the prerequisites for transitioning to colder storage classes without cost penalties.

Select the lifecycle actions that minimize storage, retrieval, and penalty costs.

Transitioning the statements to S3 Standard-IA after

30\text{ days}

and expiring the debug logs directly from S3 Standard after

14\text{ days}

matches the criteria and avoids early deletion or under-capacity billing penalties.

To combine the findings and configure the rules for maximum cost optimization.

Key Concept

Amazon S3 Lifecycle policies must account for minimum storage durations (

30\text{ days}

for Standard-IA,

90\text{ days}

for Glacier) and minimum capacity charges (

128\text{ KB}

for IA classes) to avoid cost penalties on transient or small objects.

Question 866Question →

A financial company runs a risk modeling application on AWS. The application consists of two main workloads:

1. A continuous, steady-state transaction-processing service running on AWS Fargate.
2. A daily batch-processing job running on AWS Fargate that can tolerate interruptions and does not have a strict completion time.

The company also hosts a stateful PostgreSQL database on Amazon RDS that runs continuously to support the transaction-processing service.

Which two purchasing strategies should the solutions architect recommend to minimize overall compute and database costs?

Select all that apply

Purchase a Compute Savings Plan to cover the continuous transaction-processing service running on AWS Fargate.

Use Fargate Spot to run the daily batch-processing job.

Purchase a Compute Savings Plan to cover the costs of both the continuous transaction-processing service on Fargate and the Amazon RDS PostgreSQL database.

Purchase an EC2 Instance Savings Plan to cover the continuous transaction-processing service running on AWS Fargate.

Migrate the continuous transaction-processing service to run continuously on AWS Lambda using On-Demand pricing to eliminate Fargate compute costs.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Purchase a Compute Savings Plan to cover the continuous transaction-processing service running on AWS Fargate.; Use Fargate Spot to run the daily batch-processing job.

Answer

The correct strategies are purchasing a Compute Savings Plan to cover the continuous transaction-processing service running on AWS Fargate, and using Fargate Spot to run the daily batch-processing job.

The continuous, steady-state transaction-processing service runs on AWS Fargate, which is covered by Compute Savings Plans. Purchasing a Compute Savings Plan provides significant discounts for Fargate. The daily batch-processing job is interruptible and has flexible completion times, making Fargate Spot the most cost-effective choice, providing up to a 70% discount compared to Fargate On-Demand.

Step-by-Step Solution

Analyze the workload characteristics of each compute component.

The transaction-processing service runs continuously (steady-state), while the batch-processing job is daily, interruptible, and has no strict completion time.

Understanding workload patterns is necessary to choose between commitment-based discounts and spot pricing.

Select the cost-optimized purchasing option for the steady-state Fargate service.

Compute Savings Plans apply discounts of up to 66% to EC2, AWS Fargate, and AWS Lambda usage, making them ideal for the continuous transaction-processing service.

Fargate compute is covered by Compute Savings Plans, but not by EC2 Instance Savings Plans.

Select the cost-optimized purchasing option for the interruptible batch service.

Fargate Spot offers up to a 70% discount compared to On-Demand Fargate prices for workloads that can tolerate interruptions.

Since the batch job can tolerate interruptions and has no strict completion time, Fargate Spot provides the highest savings.

Evaluate database costing and rule out incorrect purchasing plan coverages.

Compute Savings Plans and EC2 Instance Savings Plans do not cover Amazon RDS, and AWS Lambda is not cost-effective for continuous long-running workloads.

Savings Plans scope must not be misapplied to non-compute services like Amazon RDS.

Key Concept

Matching compute workloads to the correct AWS purchasing models (Compute Savings Plans, Fargate Spot) while understanding the scope boundaries of Savings Plans.

Estimated Time:2m 30s

Question 867Question →

A company runs a data processing application on Amazon EC2 instances in private subnets. The application downloads $40\text{ TB}$ of data monthly from Amazon S3. Additionally, the application writes daily database backups to Amazon S3 that are deleted after $7$ days. Which configuration will achieve the lowest overall network routing and data transfer costs for this workload?

Deploy a Gateway VPC Endpoint for Amazon S3 in the VPC, update the route tables of the private subnets to direct S3 traffic through the endpoint, and store the backups in the S3 Standard storage class.

Route the S3 download traffic through a NAT Gateway in a public subnet, and store the backups in the Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) storage class.

Purchase a Compute Savings Plan to cover the NAT Gateway data processing charges, and route the S3 download traffic through the NAT Gateway.

Deploy a Gateway VPC Endpoint for Amazon S3 in the VPC, and transition the daily backups immediately to the Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) storage class to utilize the lower storage rate.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Deploy a Gateway VPC Endpoint for Amazon S3 in the VPC, update the route tables of the private subnets to direct S3 traffic through the endpoint, and store the backups in the S3 Standard storage class.

Answer

Deploy a Gateway VPC Endpoint for Amazon S3 to route the S3 download traffic directly, and store the short-term backups in S3 Standard to avoid the minimum storage duration charge penalty of S3 Standard-IA.

Deploying a Gateway VPC Endpoint for Amazon S3 is the most cost-effective routing method because it has no hourly or data processing fees. Additionally, since the daily database backups are deleted after

7

days, storing them in S3 Standard is more economical than S3 Standard-IA, which enforces a minimum billing duration of

30

days. This avoids the short-term storage cost penalty.

Step-by-Step Solution

Evaluate network routing options for S3 data access from private subnets.

Using a Gateway VPC Endpoint is free of charge and has no data processing fees, whereas routing through a NAT Gateway incurs hourly and per-GB charges.

To eliminate the cost of downloading

40\text{ TB}

of data monthly.

Evaluate the storage class duration rules for

7

-day backups.

S3 Standard-IA charges a minimum of

30

days of storage even if deleted early, making S3 Standard cheaper for backups retained for only

7

days.

To avoid paying the short-term storage cost penalty associated with S3 Standard-IA.

Key Concept

Gateway VPC Endpoints provide free, private routing to Amazon S3, and short-term data should not be stored in S3 Standard-IA due to its

30

-day minimum storage duration billing.

Question 868Question →

An online gaming company is deploying a multiplayer game lobby system on Amazon EC2 instances. The lobby instances must exchange session data with the lowest possible network latency. The application is configured to listen on port 3000, and traffic must be distributed across the instances using an Application Load Balancer (ALB).

Which two configurations should the solutions architect choose to meet these requirements? (Select TWO.)

Select all that apply

Configure the ALB target group health check port to 3000

Launch the EC2 instances in a cluster placement group

Configure the ALB target group health check port to default to port 80

Launch the EC2 instances in a spread placement group

Launch the EC2 instances in a partition placement group

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Configure the ALB target group health check port to 3000; Launch the EC2 instances in a cluster placement group

Answer

Deploy the EC2 instances in a cluster placement group and configure the ALB target group health check port to 3000.

To achieve the lowest possible network latency between Amazon EC2 instances, they should be deployed in a cluster placement group. In addition, because the application is listening on port 3000 rather than a standard web port, the Application Load Balancer's target group health check must be explicitly configured to monitor port 3000. This ensures the health checks pass and traffic is successfully routed.

Step-by-Step Solution

Analyze the network latency requirement for node-to-node communication.

Identify that a cluster placement group is required to achieve ultra-low-latency and high-throughput networking between EC2 instances in the same Availability Zone.

Other placement groups (spread, partition) focus on high availability and fault isolation rather than minimizing network latency.

Determine the correct health check configuration for the Application Load Balancer.

Identify that the health check port must be custom-configured to port 3000 to match the application's listening port.

Using the default port 80 will cause health check failures because the application on the EC2 instances is not listening on that port.

Key Concept

Selecting appropriate EC2 placement groups for latency requirements and configuring correct ELB target group health check ports to prevent false unhealthy state.

Question 869Question →

A logistics platform tracks real-time location updates from delivery couriers. The platform must ingest high-velocity data, preserve the exact chronological order of updates per courier to avoid mapping errors, and automatically store the data in Amazon S3 in Apache Parquet format for historical analysis. The peak throughput is $8\text{ MB/s}$ and $6,000$ records per second. The solutions architect wants to minimize operational overhead and prevent ingestion throttling. Which combination of actions should the solutions architect take to meet these requirements? (Select two.)

Select all that apply

Ingest the location updates using an Amazon Kinesis data stream, using the courier ID as the partition key.

Configure Amazon Data Firehose to read from the Kinesis data stream, and enable format conversion to Apache Parquet using the AWS Glue Data Catalog.

Ingest the location updates using an Amazon SQS standard queue to buffer messages, then use AWS Lambda to write the files to Amazon S3.

Provision an Amazon Kinesis data stream with exactly

4

shards in provisioned mode to ingest the incoming telemetry.

Write a custom AWS Lambda function triggered directly by Kinesis Data Streams to batch, format, and convert the JSON payloads to Apache Parquet before writing them to Amazon S3.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Ingest the location updates using an Amazon Kinesis data stream, using the courier ID as the partition key.; Configure Amazon Data Firehose to read from the Kinesis data stream, and enable format conversion to Apache Parquet using the AWS Glue Data Catalog.

Answer

Ingest the location updates using an Amazon Kinesis data stream partitioned by courier ID, and configure Amazon Data Firehose to consume from this stream and perform format conversion to Apache Parquet using the AWS Glue Data Catalog.

Ingesting data using Amazon Kinesis Data Streams with a partition key based on the courier ID ensures that data from the same courier is mapped to the same shard, guaranteeing sequential processing. Utilizing Amazon Data Firehose allows serverless integration to read from the Kinesis stream and automatically convert JSON to Parquet format using schemas defined in the AWS Glue Data Catalog, delivering files to S3 with minimum operational management.

Step-by-Step Solution

Select an ingestion service that guarantees ordering per entity.

Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is chosen with the courier ID designated as the partition key.

Routing events by the courier ID partition key ensures that all updates for a specific courier are sent to the same shard, preserving strict order of arrival.

Calculate the shard capacity requirements for Kinesis Data Streams.

A minimum of

8

shards is required to support the peak throughput of

8\text{ MB/s}

and

6,000

records per second.

Since one shard provides a maximum of

1\text{ MB/s}

1,000

records per second of write throughput,

4

shards would cause throttling exceptions.

Identify the option that transforms data with the lowest operational overhead.

Amazon Data Firehose is integrated to read from Kinesis Data Streams and convert data format via the AWS Glue Data Catalog.

This is a fully managed configuration that natively transforms JSON to Apache Parquet before storing it in S3, avoiding custom Lambda scripts or cluster management.

Key Concept

Real-time streaming ingestion pipelines requiring sequence preservation and serverless format conversion.

Question 870Question →

A company wants to receive an email notification when their monthly AWS charges are forecasted to exceed a specific budget threshold. Which AWS service should they configure to meet this requirement?

AWS Budgets configured with a cost budget and notification threshold based on forecasted costs

AWS Cost Explorer configured to generate daily cost charts and historical spending reports

Compute Savings Plans configured to automatically limit and cap the spending on Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS instances

Amazon DynamoDB configured with Provisioned Capacity mode to throttle database operations when budget limits are breached

Show answer & explanation

Answer: AWS Budgets configured with a cost budget and notification threshold based on forecasted costs

Answer

AWS Budgets configured with a cost budget and notification threshold based on forecasted costs

AWS Budgets is the correct service for proactive cost monitoring. It allows users to define custom cost budgets and set up automatic notifications (via email or Amazon SNS) when actual or forecasted spending exceeds a specified threshold.

Step-by-Step Solution

Identify the primary requirement

The requirement is to proactively monitor monthly AWS charges and receive notifications when they are forecasted to exceed a defined limit.

This helps avoid unexpected overages before they actually occur.

Evaluate the capabilities of AWS Budgets

AWS Budgets supports setting up custom budgets based on cost, usage, RI, or Savings Plans, and can trigger SNS or email alerts based on actual or forecasted amounts.

This directly aligns with the requirement of proactive, forecast-based alerting.

Verify correct option and eliminate distractors

AWS Budgets is the correct choice, while other options either focus on retrospective reporting, pricing discount models, or database resource limits.

Ensures the chosen tool is fit-for-purpose and avoids common cost-monitoring misconceptions.

Key Concept

Proactive cost monitoring using AWS Budgets to alert on actual or forecasted cost thresholds.

Question 871Question →

An enterprise runs an analytics application on Amazon EC2 instances in private subnets across two VPCs: VPC B and VPC C. The application queries a central database cluster hosted in a private subnet within VPC A. Every month, the application in VPC B transfers $100\text{ TB}$ of data from VPC A, and the application in VPC C transfers $50\text{ TB}$ of data from VPC A. Currently, all three VPCs are interconnected using an AWS Transit Gateway, which is also connected to an on-premises data center via an AWS Direct Connect Gateway. Which solution represents the most cost-effective network routing architecture to minimize data transfer costs while maintaining the existing Direct Connect hybrid connectivity?

Configure public IP addresses for the database instances in VPC A, and route all database queries from VPC B and VPC C through their respective NAT Gateways to the public IPs of VPC A.

Replace the Transit Gateway with a Transit VPC design using software VPN appliances in a central VPC, and establish Site-to-Site VPN connections from VPC A, VPC B, and VPC C to route all database query traffic.

Establish VPC Peering connections between VPC A and VPC B, and between VPC A and VPC C. Update the route tables in all VPCs to direct the database query traffic over the VPC Peering connections, while continuing to route on-premises and low-volume inter-VPC traffic through the Transit Gateway.

Provision an AWS Managed NAT Gateway in VPC A and configure the database cluster to route all outbound responses to VPC B and VPC C via the NAT Gateway, while keeping Transit Gateway as the connection path.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Establish VPC Peering connections between VPC A and VPC B, and between VPC A and VPC C. Update the route tables in all VPCs to direct the database query traffic over the VPC Peering connections, while continuing to route on-premises and low-volume inter-VPC traffic through the Transit Gateway.

Answer

The correct solution uses VPC Peering to route high-volume database query traffic (

150\text{ TB}

monthly) directly between VPCs. Since VPC Peering does not charge a data processing fee, this completely avoids the

0.02 per GB Transit Gateway data processing charge, saving

150,000 \text{ GB} \times \

0.02 = \$3,000

per month. Keeping the existing Transit Gateway configuration for on-premises connectivity (Direct Connect) and low-volume inter-VPC communication maintains the simplified routing architecture for hybrid traffic without needing full-mesh peering.

Step-by-Step Solution

Identify the high-volume data path.

The database queries from VPC B and VPC C to VPC A account for

150\text{ TB}

(

150,000\text{ GB}

) of data transfer monthly.

This is the primary target for cost optimization.

Calculate the current Transit Gateway processing fees.

Transit Gateway charges

0.02 per GB for data processing, resulting in a monthly cost of

150,000 \times 0.02 = \

3,000

Establishing a baseline cost shows the magnitude of the routing overhead.

Evaluate VPC Peering as a cost-optimization strategy.

VPC Peering has no hourly fee and no data processing fee. Data transfer is billed at standard inter-AZ rates ($0.01 per GB) only if it crosses AZs, which is also true for Transit Gateway.

Bypassing the Transit Gateway processing fee for this specific route eliminates the

\$3,000

monthly overhead.

Evaluate hybrid connectivity and management overhead.

Retaining the existing Transit Gateway for low-volume traffic (VPC B to VPC C) and hybrid Direct Connect traffic avoids configuring complex full-mesh peering or redundant VPNs.

A hybrid design optimizes cost for the high-volume path while preserving routing efficiency for the remaining infrastructure.

Key Concept

Hybrid VPC routing cost optimization using VPC Peering for high-volume traffic paths combined with AWS Transit Gateway for low-volume and on-premises traffic.

Estimated Time:3m 0s

Question 872Question →

A company has deployed a high-throughput reporting application on Amazon EC2 instances in a private subnet. The application queries and writes transaction records to an Amazon DynamoDB table in the same AWS Region. The network architecture currently routes all outbound traffic ( $0.0.0.0/0$ ) from the private subnet through a NAT gateway. The company is seeking to reduce its monthly AWS bills, as the DynamoDB-related data transfer charges through the NAT gateway have become significant, totaling approximately $10\text{ TB}$ per month. Which architecture change will resolve the high data transfer costs at the lowest expense?

Deploy an interface VPC endpoint (AWS PrivateLink) for Amazon DynamoDB in the private subnet and update the application configuration.

Replace the NAT gateway with a self-managed NAT instance to eliminate NAT gateway data processing fees.

Create a gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon DynamoDB and associate it with the route table of the private subnet.

Configure the DynamoDB table to use Provisioned Capacity Mode with auto scaling enabled to manage the increased request rate.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Create a gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon DynamoDB and associate it with the route table of the private subnet.

Answer

Create a gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon DynamoDB and associate it with the route table of the private subnet.

The correct answer is to create a gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon DynamoDB and associate it with the private subnet's route table. Unlike interface endpoints or NAT gateways, gateway endpoints do not charge any hourly or data processing fees. Routing the

10\text{ TB}

of monthly DynamoDB traffic directly through the gateway endpoint bypasses the NAT gateway, eliminating the high NAT gateway processing fees.

Step-by-Step Solution

Analyze the source of the high monthly costs.

The application's queries and writes to Amazon DynamoDB total

10\text{ TB}

per month and are routed through a NAT gateway, which incurs significant per-GB data processing fees.

Before proposing an architectural change, the exact resource causing the cost must be identified.

Evaluate private routing alternatives for Amazon DynamoDB.

Both gateway and interface VPC endpoints provide private routing to AWS services. Interface endpoints charge hourly and data processing fees, whereas gateway endpoints for DynamoDB are free.

Determining the cost structures of alternative routes helps identify the most cost-effective solution.

Configure the gateway VPC endpoint routing.

Creating a gateway VPC endpoint and linking it to the private subnet's route table forces all DynamoDB-destined traffic to route directly over the private AWS network at no cost, bypassing the NAT gateway.

Modifying the route table ensures that the application traffic automatically shifts to the free path.

Key Concept

Gateway VPC Endpoints provide free, private routing to Amazon S3 and Amazon DynamoDB, bypassing the NAT Gateway and eliminating data transfer processing charges.

Estimated Time:1m 30s

Question 873Question →

A company runs a data processing application on Amazon EC2 instances in a private subnet. The application daily downloads $5\text{ TB}$ of data from an Amazon S3 bucket in the same AWS Region and writes transactional updates to an Amazon DynamoDB table. Currently, all traffic to S3 and DynamoDB is routed through a NAT Gateway, resulting in high data transfer charges. Which of the following configurations should the solutions architect implement to minimize network data transfer costs? (Select TWO.)

Select all that apply

Create a Gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 and associate it with the route table of the private subnet.

Create a Gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon DynamoDB and associate it with the route table of the private subnet.

Create Interface VPC endpoints (AWS PrivateLink) for Amazon S3 and DynamoDB to route the traffic.

Configure AWS Budgets to alert the administrator when the NAT Gateway data processing charges exceed a set limit.

Change the DynamoDB table capacity mode to Provisioned Capacity Mode with Auto Scaling enabled.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Create a Gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 and associate it with the route table of the private subnet.; Create a Gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon DynamoDB and associate it with the route table of the private subnet.

Answer

To minimize network data transfer costs, the solutions architect should create Gateway VPC endpoints for both Amazon S3 and Amazon DynamoDB, and associate them with the route table of the private subnet.

Creating Gateway VPC endpoints for Amazon S3 and Amazon DynamoDB and associating them with the route table of the private subnet redirects all traffic destined for these services directly over the AWS internal network. This routes the traffic without traversing the NAT Gateway, completely eliminating the per-GB data processing fees for these transfers.

Step-by-Step Solution

Analyze the current traffic flow and identify cost drivers.

The application transfers

5\text{ TB}

of data daily to S3 and writes to DynamoDB through a NAT Gateway, which incurs high hourly and per-GB data processing charges.

Identifying the NAT Gateway as the source of high data transfer costs helps target the correct optimization strategy.

Select the most cost-effective VPC endpoint type for the target services.

Identify that S3 and DynamoDB are the only two services that support Gateway VPC endpoints, which are offered at no additional cost (no hourly or data processing charges).

Gateway endpoints are the most cost-effective option for S3 and DynamoDB compared to Interface endpoints.

Update route tables to redirect S3 and DynamoDB traffic directly to the gateway endpoints.

Associating the Gateway VPC endpoints with the private subnet's route table automatically routes S3 and DynamoDB traffic directly through the endpoints, bypassing the NAT Gateway.

Updating the route table is required to ensure the private subnet instances use the new direct network path.

Key Concept

Gateway VPC Endpoints provide free, direct routing to Amazon S3 and Amazon DynamoDB from private subnets, eliminating NAT Gateway data processing fees.

Question 874Question →

An enterprise is designing a highly available and resilient storage architecture for a containerized financial reporting application. The application runs on Amazon ECS tasks deployed across three Availability Zones in a single AWS Region. The tasks must concurrently read and write active ledger files and configuration files, requiring sub-millisecond access and strong resilience against Availability Zone failures. The architecture must achieve $99.99\%$ availability, protect against data loss with $99.999999999\%$ (11 9s) durability, and maintain read/write capability across the remaining zones with a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of near-zero and a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of zero in the event of a zone outage.

Which of the following configurations should the solutions architect choose to meet these requirements? (Select TWO.)

Select all that apply

Provision an Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) file system using the EFS Standard storage class, and mount it to the container tasks in all three Availability Zones.

Store the ledger and configuration files in an Amazon S3 bucket configured with the S3 Standard storage class, enabling S3 Versioning and using the AWS SDK for file operations.

Provision an Amazon EBS volume with Multi-Attach enabled, format it with a clustered file system, and mount it to the tasks across all three Availability Zones.

Store the active files in an Amazon S3 bucket using the S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval storage class, and configure standard retrievals to fetch the files during container execution.

Deploy an Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL DB instance with a read replica in a second Availability Zone, and mount the replica as a shared block device to the tasks.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Provision an Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) file system using the EFS Standard storage class, and mount it to the container tasks in all three Availability Zones.; Store the ledger and configuration files in an Amazon S3 bucket configured with the S3 Standard storage class, enabling S3 Versioning and using the AWS SDK for file operations.

Answer

Deploying an Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) file system using the EFS Standard storage class, and storing files in an Amazon S3 bucket using the S3 Standard storage class with S3 Versioning enabled.

The correct storage configurations are deploying an Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) using EFS Standard storage, and using an Amazon S3 bucket with S3 Standard storage and Versioning enabled. Amazon EFS Standard provides a shared filesystem accessible concurrently across multiple Availability Zones with multi-AZ resilience, allowing ECS tasks to continue reading and writing during an AZ outage. Amazon S3 Standard provides

99.999999999\%

durability and replicates data across multiple Availability Zones within the region, ensuring zero data loss (RPO of zero) and near-zero RTO with proper versioning configuration.

Step-by-Step Solution

Evaluate the storage sharing and access requirements.

The application requires concurrent read/write access to shared configuration and ledger files across Amazon ECS tasks located in different Availability Zones, needing sub-millisecond access and multi-AZ resilience.

This rules out single-AZ storage solutions and solutions that do not support concurrent multi-AZ access.

Analyze Multi-AZ storage options that support concurrent access.

Amazon EFS Standard provides a fully managed shared file system that is distributed across multiple Availability Zones. Amazon S3 Standard stores objects redundantly across multiple Availability Zones and provides high durability and immediate read/write access.

Both EFS Standard and S3 Standard offer multi-AZ replication, meeting the near-zero RTO and zero RPO requirements for zone-level resilience.

Examine and eliminate incorrect options based on technical limitations.

EBS Multi-Attach is restricted to a single Availability Zone. S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval introduces significant retrieval delays. Amazon RDS is a relational database, not a mountable shared file system.

These limitations make the other options unsuitable for a resilient, shared, and low-latency storage solution.

Key Concept

Resilient multi-AZ shared storage services such as Amazon EFS and Amazon S3 Standard provide automatic replication across multiple Availability Zones, ensuring high availability and durability with near-zero recovery times in case of an AZ outage.

Estimated Time:2m 0s

Question 875Question →

A gaming company is deploying a multiplayer session hosting platform on Amazon EC2. The hosting nodes run a proprietary game server application that requires single-digit microsecond network latency for real-time state synchronization between the instances. Player traffic is distributed across the instances using a Network Load Balancer (NLB) targeting TCP port $7777$ . The instance readiness and health status are managed by an administrative daemon listening on TCP port $8888$ .

Which combination of configuration steps will satisfy the latency requirements and ensure proper health monitoring?

Launch the EC2 instances in a spread placement group. Configure the Network Load Balancer target group health check to explicitly use TCP port

8888

Launch the EC2 instances in a partition placement group. Configure the Network Load Balancer target group health check to use the default traffic port.

Launch the EC2 instances in a cluster placement group. Configure the Network Load Balancer target group health check to explicitly use TCP port

8888

Launch the EC2 instances in a cluster placement group. Configure the Network Load Balancer target group health check to use the default traffic port.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Launch the EC2 instances in a cluster placement group. Configure the Network Load Balancer target group health check to explicitly use TCP port $8888$ .

Answer

Launch the EC2 instances in a cluster placement group. Configure the Network Load Balancer target group health check to explicitly use TCP port

8888

The correct option addresses both performance and monitoring requirements. Launching EC2 instances in a cluster placement group ensures they are placed physically close to each other, achieving the single-digit microsecond network latency required for real-time synchronization. Configuring the Network Load Balancer to check TCP port

8888

ensures that the load balancer correctly routes traffic based on the administrative daemon's status rather than simply checking the traffic port.

Step-by-Step Solution

Analyze placement group options for latency requirements.

A cluster placement group is selected because it packs instances close together within a single Availability Zone, enabling low-latency, high-throughput network performance.

Spread and partition placement groups are designed for fault isolation and do not optimize for low-latency node-to-node communication.

Determine the correct health check port configuration for the Network Load Balancer.

The target group health check port must be explicitly configured to TCP port

8888

By default, the load balancer performs health checks on the traffic port (TCP

7777

). Because instance readiness is determined by a daemon on TCP port

8888

, using the default traffic port would cause the load balancer to route traffic to nodes that may not yet be ready to receive sessions.

Key Concept

Combining cluster placement groups for low-latency node communication with custom health check port routing in Elastic Load Balancing.

Estimated Time:2m 30s

Question 876Question →

A startup is deploying a new web application on AWS and wants to control their cloud spend. The startup requires a solution to proactively monitor their costs. Specifically, they need to receive alerts when their monthly costs are projected to exceed a predefined budget, and they must also be notified of any sudden, unexpected spending spikes.

Which of the following AWS services or features should the solutions architect configure to meet these requirements? (Select TWO.)

Select all that apply

AWS Budgets to define custom budgets and receive alerts when forecasted costs exceed the budget threshold

AWS Cost Anomaly Detection to identify anomalous spend and send alerts when cost spikes occur

AWS Cost Explorer to configure and send real-time email alerts when actual costs cross the budget limit

AWS Compute Savings Plans to monitor real-time resource usage and alert when spending limits are reached

AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store to automatically block service requests when budget thresholds are breached

Show answer & explanation

Answer: AWS Budgets to define custom budgets and receive alerts when forecasted costs exceed the budget threshold; AWS Cost Anomaly Detection to identify anomalous spend and send alerts when cost spikes occur

Answer

The startup should configure AWS Budgets to set up alerts for when forecasted monthly costs exceed limits, and AWS Cost Anomaly Detection to identify and receive alerts for sudden, unexpected spikes in usage costs.

The correct options are the features designed for proactive monitoring and alerting: AWS Budgets and AWS Cost Anomaly Detection. AWS Budgets allows you to set custom budgets that alert you when your actual or forecasted cost and usage exceed your budget thresholds. AWS Cost Anomaly Detection is a cost management service that uses machine learning to continuously monitor cost and usage to detect unusual spending patterns and trigger alerts.

Step-by-Step Solution

Analyze the requirement for receiving alerts when monthly costs are projected to exceed a predefined budget.

Identify AWS Budgets as the service that supports creating proactive alerts based on forecasted or actual cost thresholds.

AWS Budgets is specifically designed to let customers set custom cost and usage limits and send alerts if these limits are exceeded or forecasted to be exceeded.

Analyze the requirement for receiving notifications of sudden, unexpected spending spikes.

Identify AWS Cost Anomaly Detection as the service designed to detect unusual patterns and cost anomalies using machine learning.

AWS Cost Anomaly Detection uses machine learning to detect unusual spend anomalies and notify stakeholders immediately, helping prevent runaway costs from sudden spikes.

Evaluate the incorrect options to ensure they do not meet the proactive alerting requirements.

Eliminate AWS Cost Explorer, Compute Savings Plans, and Systems Manager Parameter Store.

AWS Cost Explorer is a retrospective reporting tool, Compute Savings Plans is a pricing discount mechanism, and Parameter Store is a configuration management service.

Key Concept

AWS Cost Monitoring and Proactive Alerting

Question 877Question →

A financial services startup runs a real-time portfolio analysis platform on Amazon EC2 instances in a private subnet of a VPC in us-east-1. The application processes and ingests $50\text{ TB}$ of historical market data daily from an Amazon S3 bucket in the same region. It also sends $10\text{ TB}$ of daily transaction logs to a log ingestion service hosted in another VPC in us-east-1 owned by a parent company. Currently, all egress traffic is routed through a NAT Gateway. Which two architectural modifications should the solutions architect implement to achieve the most cost-effective network routing? (Select TWO.)

Select all that apply

Create a Gateway VPC Endpoint for Amazon S3 in the application's VPC and associate it with the private subnet's route table.

Establish a VPC Peering connection between the application VPC and the log ingestion VPC, and update the route tables to route log traffic through the peering connection.

Deploy an Interface VPC Endpoint (AWS PrivateLink) for Amazon S3 in the application's VPC.

Deploy an AWS Transit Gateway to connect the application VPC and the log ingestion VPC, and route log traffic through the Transit Gateway.

Provision a NAT Instance in the public subnet of the application VPC to route both S3 and log traffic.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Create a Gateway VPC Endpoint for Amazon S3 in the application's VPC and associate it with the private subnet's route table.; Establish a VPC Peering connection between the application VPC and the log ingestion VPC, and update the route tables to route log traffic through the peering connection.

Answer

Creating a Gateway VPC Endpoint for Amazon S3 and establishing a VPC Peering connection for cross-VPC log traffic.

Creating a Gateway VPC Endpoint for Amazon S3 is free of charge and routes traffic directly to S3 within the same region, completely eliminating NAT Gateway data processing fees for the 50 TB daily ingestion. Establishing a VPC Peering connection within the same region avoids NAT Gateway data processing charges for the 10 TB of daily log traffic, charging only standard intra-region data transfer fees if crossing Availability Zones.

Step-by-Step Solution

Analyze S3 data transfer cost drivers.

Routing 50 TB/day of S3 data through the NAT Gateway incurs $0.045 per GB in data processing fees.

Identifying high-cost routing paths is essential for targeted optimization.

Select the most cost-effective S3 routing option.

A Gateway VPC Endpoint for S3 has no data processing or hourly charges, directing traffic internally within the AWS network.

Choosing Gateway VPC Endpoints for S3 in the same region completely eliminates NAT Gateway data processing charges.

Evaluate cross-VPC log routing options.

VPC Peering does not charge data processing fees (unlike NAT Gateway or Transit Gateway), costing only standard intra-region data transfer fees if traffic crosses Availability Zones.

VPC Peering is the most cost-effective option for direct, low-latency communication between two VPCs in the same region.

Key Concept

Cost-Effective Network Routing and Data Transfer Optimization

Question 878Question →

An e-commerce platform needs to ingest JSON-formatted checkout transactions that must be processed in the exact order they are received per customer to prevent out-of-order inventory inconsistencies. During high-traffic events, the platform experiences predictable peaks of up to $1,600$ transactions per second, with an average payload size of $1 \text{ KB}$ per transaction. The ingestion solution must deliver these transactions to a backend processing application with sub-second latency while preserving order. Which ingestion architecture should a solutions architect recommend to meet these requirements with optimal performance?

Use Amazon Kinesis Data Streams provisioned with

2

shards, utilizing the customer ID as the partition key for the incoming stream.

Use Amazon Kinesis Data Streams provisioned with

1

shard, relying on consumer group auto-scaling to process the message stream.

Use an Amazon SQS Standard queue to decouple the ingestion tier and buffer messages before they are processed by the consumer application.

Use an Amazon SQS FIFO queue with a single message group ID to distribute the workload across multiple concurrent consumer instances.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Use Amazon Kinesis Data Streams provisioned with $2$ shards, utilizing the customer ID as the partition key for the incoming stream.

Answer

Use Amazon Kinesis Data Streams provisioned with

2

shards, utilizing the customer ID as the partition key for the incoming stream.

The correct architecture uses Amazon Kinesis Data Streams provisioned with at least

2

shards and partition keys based on the customer ID. A single Kinesis Data Streams shard supports a maximum write capacity of

1 \text{ MB/s}

1,000

records per second. The application's peak requirements (

1.6 \text{ MB/s}

and

1,600

write requests per second) exceed the capacity of a single shard, meaning at least

2

shards must be provisioned to prevent ingestion throttling. Additionally, utilizing the customer ID as the partition key ensures that transactions for each individual customer are hashed to the same shard, preserving the exact ingestion order for processing.

Step-by-Step Solution

Calculate the total throughput requirements for the system during peak times.

Total write throughput is

1.6 \text{ MB/s}

(

1,600 \text{ transactions/sec} \times 1 \text{ KB/transaction}

) and the transaction rate is

1,600

write requests per second.

This is necessary to determine the shard capacity or queue limits required to prevent ingestion bottlenecks.

Evaluate Kinesis Data Streams shard capacity constraints.

A single shard supports up to

1 \text{ MB/s}

of write throughput or

1,000

write records per second. Since the peak rate is

1.6 \text{ MB/s}

and

1,600

write requests per second, at least

2

shards are required.

To avoid ProvisionedThroughputExceededException errors during peak transaction periods.

Determine the partition key strategy for ordering.

Using the customer ID as the partition key routes all transactions for a specific customer to the same shard, guaranteeing in-order processing per customer.

The requirements dictate that events must be processed in the exact sequence they are received per customer.

Key Concept

Determining stream shard capacity based on write throughput/record limits, and leveraging partition keys to guarantee order preservation in Amazon Kinesis Data Streams.

Estimated Time:2m 0s

Question 879Question →

A company is deploying a media processing application on a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances distributed across $3$ Availability Zones. The application requires concurrent, shared access to a POSIX-compliant file system to read and write large media files. The storage solution must scale throughput dynamically to handle unpredictable spikes in file processing demands while maintaining low latency. Which storage configuration should a solutions architect recommend to meet these requirements?

Amazon EBS gp3 volumes with Multi-Attach enabled

Amazon EFS using Elastic throughput mode

Amazon EBS io2 volumes with Multi-Attach enabled

Amazon S3 bucket mounted on the EC2 instances using the Amazon S3 Mountpoint utility

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Amazon EFS using Elastic throughput mode

Answer

Amazon EFS using Elastic throughput mode

The correct option is the one specifying Amazon EFS using Elastic throughput mode. Amazon EFS provides a fully managed, POSIX-compliant shared file system that allows concurrent read and write access from EC2 instances across multiple Availability Zones. By using Elastic throughput mode, EFS dynamically adjusts throughput capacity in response to workload activity, which perfectly matches the unpredictable spike requirements.

Step-by-Step Solution

Analyze the requirement for shared POSIX-compliant file access across multiple Availability Zones.

Identify that Amazon EBS volumes (including gp3 and io2) cannot be shared across multiple Availability Zones, as EBS Multi-Attach is restricted to a single Availability Zone. Amazon S3 is not POSIX-compliant.

This narrows the candidate services down to Amazon EFS or Amazon FSx, which support multi-AZ shared access.

Evaluate the throughput requirements of the media processing workload.

The application requires scaling throughput dynamically to handle unpredictable spikes.

Amazon EFS with Elastic throughput mode automatically scales throughput to meet the workload demand without manual provisioning, optimizing performance and cost.

Key Concept

Shared, highly scalable, POSIX-compliant storage across multiple Availability Zones

Estimated Time:1m 30s

Question 880Question →

A biotechnology firm operates a genomics platform on AWS. The architecture consists of the following components:

1. A web application portal hosted on Amazon ECS on AWS Fargate that runs continuously to provide researchers with search capabilities. The portal requires a predictable baseline of $4\text{ vCPU}$ and $16\text{ GB}$ of RAM at all times.
2. A batch processing system hosted on Amazon ECS on AWS Fargate that executes alignment algorithms on raw sequence files. These jobs are highly parallelized, stateless, can be interrupted without loss of progress due to checkpointing, and typically take $6$ to $8$ hours to complete.
3. An Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL database instance that stores metadata and query logs, running continuously $24/7$ .
4. An Amazon S3 bucket where raw sequence files are uploaded, processed by the alignment algorithm within $24$ hours, and then immediately deleted from S3.

Which combination of purchasing and storage strategies will provide the most cost-effective solution for these workloads?

Purchase a single Compute Savings Plan sized to cover both the baseline Fargate compute for the web application portal and the Amazon RDS PostgreSQL instance, run the batch processing system on Fargate Spot, and store the raw sequence files in Amazon S3 Standard.

Purchase a Compute Savings Plan to cover the baseline Fargate compute for the web application portal, run the batch processing system on Fargate Spot, purchase an Amazon RDS Reserved DB Instance for the database, and store the raw sequence files in Amazon S3 Standard.

Migrate the batch processing jobs from Fargate to AWS Lambda, purchase a Compute Savings Plan to cover the web application portal and Lambda execution costs, purchase an Amazon RDS Reserved DB Instance for the database, and store the raw sequence files in Amazon S3 Standard.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: Purchase a Compute Savings Plan to cover the baseline Fargate compute for the web application portal, run the batch processing system on Fargate Spot, purchase an Amazon RDS Reserved DB Instance for the database, and store the raw sequence files in Amazon S3 Standard.

Answer

Purchasing a Compute Savings Plan is the most cost-effective choice for the continuously running Fargate web portal because it offers significant discounts on Fargate compute for a committed usage. Since the batch processing jobs are stateless, checkpointed, and can tolerate interruptions, Fargate Spot is the most economical model for containerized batch workloads, offering up to a 90% discount compared to On-Demand prices. Amazon RDS has its own dedicated Reserved DB Instances, which provide substantial discounts for continuous 24/7 database workloads; Compute Savings Plans do not apply to RDS. Finally, storing raw sequence files that are processed and deleted within 24 hours in Amazon S3 Standard avoids the 30-day minimum storage charge penalty associated with S3 Standard-IA.

Step-by-Step Solution

Analyze the web application portal requirements.

Since it runs continuously with a predictable baseline of

4\text{ vCPU}

and

16\text{ GB}

of RAM, a Compute Savings Plan is the most cost-optimal purchasing model for Fargate, providing discounts up to

66\%

in exchange for a committed usage.

Web application compute runs continuously and requires a stable baseline.

Analyze the batch processing system requirements.

Since the jobs are stateless, parallelized, and checkpointed to tolerate interruptions, they can be run on Fargate Spot to save up to

90\%

compared to On-Demand pricing.

Spot instances/Fargate Spot are designed for fault-tolerant and interruptible workloads.

Analyze the database requirements.

Since the RDS PostgreSQL database runs continuously

24/7

, purchasing an RDS Reserved DB Instance is the correct optimization strategy. Compute Savings Plans do not cover RDS.

RDS databases are not eligible for Compute Savings Plans, so dedicated Reserved Instances must be used.

Analyze the S3 storage requirements.

Raw sequence files are processed and deleted within

24

hours. Amazon S3 Standard has no minimum storage duration and no retrieval charges, whereas S3 Standard-IA has a minimum

30

-day storage charge. Storing them in S3 Standard is more cost-effective.

Short-lived data (deleted within

30

days) incurs a cost penalty on S3 Standard-IA due to its minimum storage duration policy.

Key Concept

Selecting cost-optimized AWS compute purchasing models (Compute Savings Plans, Spot, Reserved Instances) and storage tiers based on workload patterns.

Estimated Time:2m 30s

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