AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 586

An ecommerce application uses a PostgreSQL database that runs on an Amazon EC2 instance. During a monthly sales event, database usage increases and causes database connection issues for the application. The traffic is unpredictable for subsequent monthly sales events, which impacts the sales forecast. The company needs to maintain performance when there is an unpredictable increase in traffic.

Which solution resolves this issue in the MOST cost-effective way?

Answer options

• A. Migrate the PostgreSQL database to Amazon Aurora Serverless v2.
• B. Enable auto scaling for the PostgreSQL database on the EC2 instance to accommodate increased usage.
• C. Migrate the PostgreSQL database to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL with a larger instance type.
• D. Migrate the PostgreSQL database to Amazon Redshift to accommodate increased usage.

Correct answer: A

Explanation

Amazon Aurora Serverless v2 automatically and dynamically scales database capacity up and down based on actual application demand, which perfectly handles unpredictable traffic spikes cost-effectively. Scaling a database on an EC2 instance is not natively supported, and provisioning a larger Amazon RDS instance would lead to high idle costs during non-peak times. Amazon Redshift is an analytical data warehouse and is not designed for transactional ecommerce workloads.