AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C02) — Question 226

A company has a highly dynamic batch processing job that uses many Amazon EC2 instances to complete it. The job is stateless in nature, can be started and stopped at any given time with no negative impact, and typically takes upwards of 60 minutes total to complete. The company has asked a solutions architect to design a scalable and cost-effective solution that meets the requirements of the job.
What should the solutions architect recommend?

Answer options

• A. Implement EC2 Spot Instances.
• B. Purchase EC2 Reserved Instances.
• C. Implement EC2 On-Demand Instances.
• D. Implement the processing on AWS Lambda.

Correct answer: A

Explanation

The recommended option, A, is correct because EC2 Spot Instances allow for significant cost savings on compute resources for jobs that are flexible and can tolerate interruptions, which fits the job's stateless nature. Option B, purchasing Reserved Instances, is not suitable due to the job's dynamic requirements and potential downtime. Option C, using On-Demand Instances, would be more expensive over time, and option D, processing with AWS Lambda, is not appropriate since the job exceeds the maximum duration limit for Lambda functions.