AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C02) — Question 238

A company wants to optimize AWS data-transfer costs and compute costs across developer accounts within the company's organization in AWS Organizations. Developers can configure VPCs and launch Amazon EC2 instances in a single AWS Region. The EC2 instances retrieve approximately 1 TB of data each day from Amazon S3.

The developer activity leads to excessive monthly data-transfer charges and NAT gateway processing charges between EC2 instances and S3 buckets, along with high compute costs. The company wants to proactively enforce approved architectural patterns for any EC2 instance and VPC infrastructure that developers deploy within the AWS accounts. The company does not want this enforcement to negatively affect the speed at which the developers can perform their tasks.

Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?

Answer options

• A. Create SCPs to prevent developers from launching unapproved EC2 instance types. Provide the developers with an AWS CloudFormation template to deploy an approved VPC configuration with S3 interface endpoints. Scope the developers' IAM permissions so that the developers can launch VPC resources only with CloudFormation.
• B. Create a daily forecasted budget with AWS Budgets to monitor EC2 compute costs and S3 data-transfer costs across the developer accounts. When the forecasted cost is 75% of the actual budget cost, send an alert to the developer teams. If the actual budget cost is 100%, create a budget action to terminate the developers' EC2 instances and VPC infrastructure.
• C. Create an AWS Service Catalog portfolio that users can use to create an approved VPC configuration with S3 gateway endpoints and approved EC2 instances. Share the portfolio with the developer accounts. Configure an AWS Service Catalog launch constraint to use an approved IAM role. Scope the developers' IAM permissions to allow access only to AWS Service Catalog.
• D. Create and deploy AWS Config rules to monitor the compliance of EC2 and VPC resources in the developer AWS accounts. If developers launch unapproved EC2 instances or if developers create VPCs without S3 gateway endpoints, perform a remediation action to terminate the unapproved resources.

Correct answer: C

Explanation

Option C is the most cost-effective solution because it allows developers to use an AWS Service Catalog portfolio, enabling them to deploy approved resources while ensuring compliance with architectural patterns. Option A restricts resource deployment too strictly and could hinder developer progress. Option B relies on budget alerts and corrective actions after costs are incurred, rather than proactively enforcing best practices. Option D focuses on monitoring and remediation, which may not be as efficient as providing developers with ready-to-use approved configurations.