CompTIA Cloud Essentials+ (CLO-002)Management and Technical OperationsMedium
A cloud administrator is tasked with optimizing costs for a development environment that is only active during business hours (9 AM to 5 PM, Monday to Friday). The current setup involves always-on virtual machines (VMs). Which cost optimization strategy would provide the most immediate and significant savings for this specific scenario?
- AImplementing automated scheduled start/stop of VMs
- BReserving instances for 1-year terms
- CSwitching to serverless functions for all applications
- DMigrating to a different cloud provider with lower hourly rates
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Implementing automated scheduled start/stop of VMs
Automated scheduled start/stop of VMs directly addresses the problem of idle resources. By stopping VMs outside of business hours, the administrator eliminates compute costs for the majority of the week, leading to significant and immediate savings.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Reserved instances are for predictable, long-running workloads, not for instances that are idle for most of the week.
- C. Switching to serverless might be a long-term goal but is a major architectural change, not an immediate cost optimization for existing VMs.
- D. While a different provider might offer savings, it involves significant migration effort and may not be the most immediate or targeted solution for idle resources.
Cloud Cost Optimization
The process of managing and reducing cloud spending by optimizing resource usage, selecting appropriate pricing models, and eliminating waste.
- Focuses on aligning costs with business value.
- Strategies include rightsizing, automation, and leveraging discounts.
- Continuous process that requires monitoring and analysis.
Memory trick: Stop the idle, rightsize the load, reserve for sure, but pay for what's showed.