AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
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A company has Amazon EC2 instances that run nightly batch jobs to process data. The EC2 instances run in an Auto Scaling group that uses On-Demand billing. If a job fails on one instance, another instance will reprocess the job. The batch jobs run between 12:00 AM and 06:00 AM local time every day.
Which solution will provide EC2 instances to meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?
Other
Community
UAnonymous
A
Purchase a 1-year Savings Plan for Amazon EC2 that covers the instance family of the Auto Scaling group that the batch job uses.
B
Purchase a 1-year Reserved Instance for the specific instance type and operating system of the instances in the Auto Scaling group that the batch job uses.
C
Create a new launch template for the Auto Scaling group. Set the instances to Spot Instances. Set a policy to scale out based on CPU usage.
D
Create a new launch template for the Auto Scaling group. Increase the instance size. Set a policy to scale out based on CPU usage.
Explanation:
Explanation
Correct Answer: C
Why Option C is the most cost-effective solution:
-
Spot Instances are ideal for batch jobs: The batch jobs run nightly (12:00 AM - 6:00 AM) and are fault-tolerant (if a job fails, another instance reprocesses it). Spot Instances offer up to 90% discount compared to On-Demand instances, making them perfect for:
- Interruptible workloads
- Fault-tolerant applications
- Time-flexible batch processing
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Auto Scaling with Spot Instances: By creating a new launch template with Spot Instances in the Auto Scaling group, the company can:
- Automatically request Spot Instances at the lowest possible price
- Handle Spot interruptions gracefully (since jobs can be reprocessed)
- Scale based on actual workload needs
-
Why other options are less cost-effective:
- Option A (Savings Plan): While Savings Plans offer discounts (up to 72%), they require 1-3 year commitments and are better for steady-state workloads, not intermittent nightly batch jobs.
- Option B (Reserved Instances): Reserved Instances require paying for instances 24/7 for 1 year, even though they're only needed 6 hours per day (25% utilization). This is wasteful.
- Option D (Increase instance size): This increases costs by using larger, more expensive instances rather than optimizing the pricing model.
Key AWS Cost Optimization Principles:
- Use Spot Instances for fault-tolerant, flexible workloads
- Right-size instances based on actual requirements
- Choose the appropriate pricing model for the workload pattern
- Leverage Auto Scaling to match capacity to demand
Additional Considerations:
- The solution should include Spot Instance interruption handling mechanisms
- Consider using Spot Fleet or EC2 Fleet for better Spot Instance management
- Monitor Spot Instance pricing trends for the specific instance types
- Implement checkpointing for long-running batch jobs to resume from interruption points
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