SAA-C03 Question 319
Single answerA company is running a web application on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application stores user-uploaded files in an Amazon S3 bucket and stores metadata in an Amazon RDS database. Recently, the company has been experiencing a significant increase in traffic, causing intermittent performance issues with the EC2 instances. As a Solutions Architect, how can you address these performance issues while minimizing operational overhead?
- A
Scale the EC2 instances vertically by upgrading to a larger instance type.
- B
Use Amazon Auto Scaling to dynamically adjust the number of EC2 instances based on demand.
- C
Implement Amazon CloudFront to cache static content and reduce load on the EC2 instances.
- D
Migrate the web application to a serverless solution like AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
The best solution to address the performance issues and minimize operational overhead is to use Amazon Auto Scaling. This allows the EC2 instances to scale dynamically based on demand, ensuring that sufficient resources are available during traffic spikes while reducing costs during low traffic periods. This strategy does not require a complete architectural change and effectively addresses the issue at hand.
- A. Incorrect.
Scaling EC2 instances vertically (upgrading to a larger instance type) is not an optimal solution as it may not handle fluctuating traffic effectively and does not minimize operational overhead.
- B. Correct.
Using Amazon Auto Scaling ensures that the number of EC2 instances dynamically adjusts based on traffic demand, helping to maintain performance while reducing operational effort.
- C. Incorrect.
While Amazon CloudFront can help reduce load by caching static content, it may not fully address the performance issues caused by dynamic content or high traffic to the application.
- D. Incorrect.
Migrating the web application to a serverless solution like AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway could be a valid option, but it requires a significant architectural overhaul, which may not be feasible in the short term.