AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional — Question 81

Your application provides data transformation services. Files containing data to be transformed are first uploaded to Amazon S3 and then transformed by a fleet of spot EC2 instances. Files submitted by your premium customers must be transformed with the highest priority.
How should you implement such a system?

Answer options

• A. Use a DynamoDB table with an attribute defining the priority level. Transformation instances will scan the table for tasks, sorting the results by priority level.
• B. Use Route 53 latency based-routing to send high priority tasks to the closest transformation instances.
• C. Use two SQS queues, one for high priority messages, the other for default priority. Transformation instances first poll the high priority queue; if there is no message, they poll the default priority queue.
• D. Use a single SQS queue. Each message contains the priority level. Transformation instances poll high-priority messages first.

Correct answer: C

Explanation

The correct answer is C because using two SQS queues allows for a clear separation of high and default priority tasks, ensuring that premium customer files are processed first. Option A is incorrect as scanning a DynamoDB table may introduce latency and does not guarantee high-priority processing. Option B does not address the queuing aspect needed for task management, and option D does not effectively prioritize messages since it relies on a single queue for all priority levels.