AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 911

A company has multiple Amazon RDS DB instances that run in a development AWS account. All the instances have tags to identify them as development resources. The company needs the development DB instances to run on a schedule only during business hours.

Which solution will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?

Answer options

• A. Create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm to identify RDS instances that need to be stopped. Create an AWS Lambda function to start and stop the RDS instances.
• B. Create an AWS Trusted Advisor report to identify RDS instances to be started and stopped. Create an AWS Lambda function to start and stop the RDS instances.
• C. Create AWS Systems Manager State Manager associations to start and stop the RDS instances.
• D. Create an Amazon EventBridge rule that invokes AWS Lambda functions to start and stop the RDS instances.

Correct answer: C

Explanation

AWS Systems Manager State Manager offers a built-in, low-overhead mechanism to automatically start and stop Amazon RDS instances on a schedule using pre-configured SSM documents targeted by resource tags. This native capability eliminates the operational overhead of writing, testing, and maintaining custom AWS Lambda code. Solutions involving Lambda functions, such as using CloudWatch, Trusted Advisor, or EventBridge as triggers, require more manual effort and ongoing maintenance.