AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03)Design Cost-Optimized ArchitecturesMedium

A financial services company is developing a new application that will process high volumes of financial transactions. The application requires a database that can handle millions of requests per second, with consistent single-digit millisecond latency. Data must be highly available and durable, and the solution needs to be cost-optimized for both provisioned capacity and on-demand scaling. Which AWS database service is the most cost-effective solution for these requirements?

  1. AAmazon RDS for PostgreSQL with Provisioned IOPS
  2. BAmazon DynamoDB with On-Demand capacity mode
  3. CAmazon Aurora Serverless v2
  4. DAmazon Redshift with Concurrency Scaling
Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: B. Amazon DynamoDB with On-Demand capacity mode

Amazon DynamoDB with On-Demand capacity mode offers consistent single-digit millisecond latency, high availability, and durability, while automatically adjusting to workload changes, making it cost-effective for fluctuating high-volume transaction processing without over-provisioning.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL can achieve high performance but typically requires more manual scaling and can be less cost-effective for extreme, fluctuating request rates compared to DynamoDB On-Demand.
  • C. Amazon Aurora Serverless v2 is cost-effective for intermittent or unpredictable workloads, but for consistent millions of requests per second, DynamoDB's architecture is generally more suited and cost-optimized for that specific scale and type of workload (NoSQL key-value store).
  • D. Amazon Redshift is a data warehousing service optimized for analytical queries, not high-volume transactional processing with single-digit millisecond latency requirements.

DynamoDB On-Demand Capacity

A DynamoDB capacity mode that charges for the data reads and writes your application performs, automatically scaling to accommodate workload changes.

  • Pay-per-request pricing model.
  • Automatically scales up and down for fluctuating workloads.
  • Eliminates the need for capacity planning.
  • Suitable for unpredictable traffic patterns.

Memory trick: Dynamic Demands, Optimal Dollars.

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