SOA-C02 Question 293
Select 2A company has deployed a web application on Amazon EC2 instances using an Auto Scaling group. The application traffic fluctuates significantly throughout the day, and the instances are only utilized at 30% capacity on average during off-peak hours. The SysOps Administrator has been tasked with reducing costs while ensuring the application's availability and scalability. Which of the following actions should the administrator take to optimize costs?
- A
Configure an Auto Scaling group with scheduled scaling to adjust the number of instances based on predictable traffic patterns.
- B
Switch the instance type to a larger instance to handle peak traffic more effectively.
- C
Use Spot Instances for non-critical workloads while keeping On-Demand Instances for critical workloads.
- D
Enable EC2 Instance Hibernate to retain application state during off-peak hours.
- E
Move the application to AWS Lambda to implement a serverless architecture.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answers: A, C
Explanation
To optimize costs, the administrator should use scheduled scaling to reduce the number of instances during predictable off-peak hours and leverage Spot Instances for non-critical workloads to benefit from lower pricing. These actions align with cost optimization strategies without compromising application availability or scalability.
- A. Correct.
Correct: Configuring scheduled scaling helps ensure the number of running instances matches the predictable traffic patterns, reducing costs during off-peak hours.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect: Switching to a larger instance type may increase costs rather than optimizing them. The current issue is underutilization, not insufficient capacity.
- C. Correct.
Correct: Spot Instances are significantly cheaper than On-Demand Instances and are suitable for non-critical workloads, helping reduce overall costs.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect: EC2 Instance Hibernate is not suitable for this scenario, as it is used for retaining application state when stopping instances, not for scaling or cost optimization.
- E. Incorrect.
Incorrect: Moving to AWS Lambda might be a valid cost-saving option for some applications, but it requires a complete re-architecture and is not a simple optimization strategy for this scenario.