AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
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A company is migrating its on-premises workload to the AWS Cloud. The company already uses several Amazon EC2 instances and Amazon RDS DB instances. The company wants a solution that automatically starts and stops the EC2 instances and DB instances outside of business hours. The solution must minimize cost and infrastructure maintenance.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
Other
Community
UAnonymous
A
Scale the EC2 instances by using elastic resize. Scale the DB instances to zero outside of business hours.
B
Explore AWS Marketplace for partner solutions that will automatically start and stop the EC2 instances and DB instances on a schedule.
C
Launch another EC2 instance. Configure a crontab schedule to run shell scripts that will start and stop the existing EC2 instances and DB instances on a schedule.
D
Create an AWS Lambda function that will start and stop the EC2 instances and DB instances. Configure Amazon EventBridge to invoke the Lambda function on a schedule.
Explanation:
Explanation
Correct Answer: D
Why Option D is correct:
- Cost Optimization: AWS Lambda is serverless and only runs when invoked, so there's no cost for idle compute resources. This minimizes costs compared to running a dedicated EC2 instance (Option C) or using third-party solutions (Option B).
- Minimal Infrastructure Maintenance: Lambda functions require no server management, patching, or maintenance. Amazon EventBridge (formerly CloudWatch Events) provides a fully managed event bus service.
- Automated Scheduling: EventBridge can be configured with cron expressions to invoke the Lambda function on a schedule (e.g., start instances at 8 AM, stop instances at 6 PM).
- Native AWS Integration: The Lambda function can use AWS SDKs to call EC2 and RDS APIs to start/stop instances, providing a fully managed AWS-native solution.
Why other options are incorrect:
Option A:
- Elastic resize is for Redshift clusters, not EC2 instances
- RDS instances cannot be scaled to zero; you can only stop them, which is different from scaling to zero
- This approach doesn't provide automated scheduling
Option B:
- While AWS Marketplace solutions might work, they typically incur additional costs
- Third-party solutions require additional management and may not be as tightly integrated
- Doesn't minimize infrastructure maintenance as much as a serverless solution
Option C:
- Requires launching and maintaining another EC2 instance, which adds cost
- Requires managing the instance (patching, security, monitoring)
- The crontab solution adds operational overhead
- Doesn't minimize infrastructure maintenance
Key AWS Services Used:
- AWS Lambda: Serverless compute service
- Amazon EventBridge: Serverless event bus for scheduling
- Amazon EC2: For compute instances
- Amazon RDS: For database instances
Best Practice: This solution follows AWS best practices for cost optimization by using serverless services to manage infrastructure lifecycle, eliminating the need for dedicated management servers.
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