AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 935

A company is developing a new application that uses a relational database to store user data and application configurations. The company expects the application to have steady user growth. The company expects the database usage to be variable and read-heavy, with occasional writes.

The company wants to cost-optimize the database solution. The company wants to use an AWS managed database solution that will provide the necessary performance.

Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?

Answer options

• A. Deploy the database on Amazon RDS. Use Provisioned IOPS SSD storage to ensure consistent performance for read and write operations.
• B. Deploy the database on Amazon Aurora Serverless to automatically scale the database capacity based on actual usage to accommodate the workload.
• C. Deploy the database on Amazon DynamoDB. Use on-demand capacity mode to automatically scale throughput to accommodate the workload.
• D. Deploy the database on Amazon RDS. Use magnetic storage and use read replicas to accommodate the workload.

Correct answer: B

Explanation

Amazon Aurora Serverless is the ideal choice because it automatically scales capacity up or down to match highly variable workloads, ensuring cost-efficiency by only charging for resources consumed. Amazon DynamoDB is a NoSQL database and does not satisfy the relational database requirement. Amazon RDS options using Provisioned IOPS or magnetic storage with read replicas are less cost-effective due to the manual intervention required and the cost of maintaining idle over-provisioned resources.