SAP-C02 Question #805: Real Exam Question with Answer & Explanation

Question

A company needs to optimize the cost of its application on AWS. The application uses AWS Lambda functions and Amazon ECS containers that run on AWS Fargate. The application is write-heavy and stores data in an Amazon Aurora MySQL database. The load on the application is not consistent. The application experiences long periods of no usage, followed by sudden and significant increases and decreases in traffic. The database runs on a memory optimized DB instance and has high utilization during peak times. A solutions architect must design a solution that can scale to handle the changes in traffic. Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?

Options

• AAdd additional read replicas to the database. Purchase Instance Savings Plans and reserved DB
• BMigrate the database to an Aurora DB cluster that has multiple writer instances. Purchase
• CMigrate the database to an Aurora global database. Purchase Compute Savings Plans and
• DMigrate the database to Aurora Serverless v2. Purchase Compute Savings Plans.

Explanation

Aurora Serverless v2 is the most cost-effective solution for databases with highly inconsistent and unpredictable workloads, as it automatically scales capacity up and down, and can pause during idle periods. Combining it with Compute Savings Plans for the other serverless components (Lambda, Fargate) further optimizes overall costs.

Common mistakes.

• A. Read replicas only help with read scaling, not the stated high utilization during peak times on a write-heavy database, and Instance Savings Plans/reserved instances are not cost-effective for highly inconsistent workloads with long idle periods.
• B. Multiple writer instances (multi-master) in an Aurora DB cluster are primarily for high availability and distributed writes across regions, not cost-effective scaling for inconsistent, spiky load patterns.
• C. An Aurora global database is for cross-region disaster recovery and low-latency global reads, which does not address the cost-effective scaling for highly variable, inconsistent load within a single region.

Concept tested. Aurora Serverless v2 cost-effective scaling

Reference. https://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/serverless/

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