Question

Difficulty: MediumCompute Virtualization Solutions

A media broadcasting company is designing a system on Azure to process weekly high-definition video archives. The processing jobs are batch-oriented, can be interrupted and resumed without loss of progress, and must be completed within a flexible 48-hour window to minimize costs. Conversely, the system's management dashboard is a steady-state web application that must remain highly available 24/7 with no tolerance for unexpected downtime.

Which compute configuration should you recommend to meet these requirements while minimizing costs?

  1. A
    Host both the video processing jobs and the management dashboard on Azure Spot Virtual Machine Scale Sets.
  2. Host the video processing jobs on Azure Spot Virtual Machines, and host the management dashboard on standard Azure Virtual Machines.Answer
  3. C
    Host the video processing jobs on standard Azure Virtual Machines, and host the management dashboard on Azure Spot Virtual Machines.
  4. D
    Host the video processing jobs on Azure Dedicated Hosts, and host the management dashboard on Azure Spot Virtual Machines.

Answer

Host the video processing jobs on Azure Spot Virtual Machines, and host the management dashboard on standard Azure Virtual Machines.
The correct recommendation is to host the video processing jobs on Azure Spot Virtual Machines and the management dashboard on standard Azure Virtual Machines. Spot VMs are highly cost-effective and suitable for batch jobs that can tolerate interruptions and be resumed. In contrast, the management dashboard is a steady-state application that requires continuous availability and cannot tolerate evictions, thus requiring standard Azure Virtual Machines.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the requirements for the video processing workload.
The video processing jobs are batch-oriented, interruptible, and have a flexible completion window of 48 hours, making them ideal candidates for Azure Spot Virtual Machines to reduce costs.
Spot VMs provide unused Azure capacity at a deep discount, but can be evicted with a 30-second warning, which is acceptable for workloads that can be paused and resumed.
2
Analyze the requirements for the management dashboard workload.
The management dashboard is a steady-state web application that requires 24/7 high availability with no tolerance for unexpected downtime, meaning it must be hosted on standard Azure Virtual Machines.
Standard Azure Virtual Machines offer SLA-backed availability and are not subject to capacity-based evictions.
3
Select the option that matches both compute requirements while minimizing costs.
Host the video processing jobs on Azure Spot VMs and the management dashboard on standard Azure VMs.
This combination leverages cost-saving Spot instances for the tolerant batch workload while protecting the critical production dashboard from eviction.

Key Concept

Selecting appropriate virtual machine types and pricing models (Spot vs. Standard) based on workload stability, tolerance for interruption, and cost requirements.
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