AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03)Design Cost-Optimized ArchitecturesEasy
A financial analytics company processes large datasets daily using AWS Batch jobs. These jobs are fault-tolerant and can tolerate interruptions. The company wants to minimize compute costs for these batch processing workloads. Which EC2 purchasing option should they primarily use?
- ASpot Instances
- BDedicated Hosts
- COn-Demand Instances
- DReserved Instances
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Spot Instances
Spot Instances allow users to bid on unused EC2 capacity, offering significant cost savings (up to 90% off On-Demand prices). They are ideal for fault-tolerant, flexible workloads that can be interrupted, such as batch processing.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Dedicated Hosts provide physical isolation and are primarily used for licensing requirements, not cost optimization for flexible workloads.
- C. On-Demand Instances are the most expensive option and do not offer cost savings for interruptible workloads.
- D. Reserved Instances provide discounts for consistent, long-term workloads, but not for interruptible, flexible ones.
EC2 Spot Instances
Unused EC2 capacity available at a significant discount (up to 90% off On-Demand price) compared to On-Demand instances. Spot Instances can be interrupted by AWS with a two-minute warning.
- Up to 90% savings compared to On-Demand.
- Ideal for fault-tolerant or flexible workloads.
- Can be interrupted by AWS with a two-minute notification.
Memory trick: Spot saves a lot, but mind the interruption plot.