AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional — Question 7

A Solutions Architect is working with a company that is extremely sensitive to its IT costs and wishes to implement controls that will result in a predictable AWS spend each month.
Which combination of steps can help the company control and monitor its monthly AWS usage to achieve a cost that is as close as possible to the target amount?
(Choose three.)

Answer options

• A. Implement an IAM policy that requires users to specify a 'workload' tag for cost allocation when launching Amazon EC2 instances.
• B. Contact AWS Support and ask that they apply limits to the account so that users are not able to launch more than a certain number of instance types.
• C. Purchase all upfront Reserved Instances that cover 100% of the account's expected Amazon EC2 usage.
• D. Place conditions in the users' IAM policies that limit the number of instances they are able to launch.
• E. Define 'workload' as a cost allocation tag in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console.
• F. Set up AWS Budgets to alert and notify when a given workload is expected to exceed a defined cost.

Correct answer: A, E, F

Explanation

The correct answers A, E, and F focus on tagging, cost allocation, and budget monitoring, which are key strategies for managing AWS spending. Option B is incorrect as AWS does not apply instance type limits at the account level, and purchasing Reserved Instances (Option C) may not be flexible enough for a company seeking predictable costs without knowing exact usage. Option D also limits user actions but does not provide a comprehensive solution for tracking and managing costs.