AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C02) — Question 385

A company previously migrated its data warehouse solution to AWS. The company also has an AWS Direct Connect connection. Corporate office users query the data warehouse using a visualization tool. The average size of a query returned by the data warehouse is 50 MB and each webpage sent by the visualization tool is approximately 500 KB. Result sets returned by the data warehouse are not cached.
Which solution provides the LOWEST data transfer egress cost for the company?

Answer options

• A. Host the visualization tool on premises and query the data warehouse directly over the internet.
• B. Host the visualization tool in the same AWS Region as the data warehouse. Access it over the internet.
• C. Host the visualization tool on premises and query the data warehouse directly over a Direct Connect connection at a location in the same AWS Region.
• D. Host the visualization tool in the same AWS Region as the data warehouse and access it over a DirectConnect connection at a location in the same Region.

Correct answer: D

Explanation

Hosting the visualization tool in the same AWS Region as the data warehouse keeps the large 50 MB query result sets within the AWS network, incurring no egress fees. Only the much smaller 500 KB webpage payloads are transferred out to the corporate users. Since AWS Direct Connect egress data transfer rates are cheaper than standard internet egress rates, accessing the visualization tool over Direct Connect results in the lowest overall cost.