AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional — Question 950

A company has an application behind a load balancer with enough Amazon EC2 instances to satisfy peak demand. Scripts and third-party deployment solutions are used to configure EC2 instances when demand increases or an instance fails. The team must periodically evaluate the utilization of the instance types to ensure that the correct sizes are deployed.
How can this workload be optimized to meet these requirements?

Answer options

• A. Use CloudFormer to create AWS CloudFormation stacks from the current resources. Deploy that stack by using AWS CloudFormation in the same region. Use Amazon CloudWatch alarms to send notifications about underutilized resources to provide cost-savings suggestions.
• B. Create an Auto Scaling group to scale the instances, and use AWS CodeDeploy to perform the configuration. Change from a load balancer to an Application Load Balancer. Purchase a third-party product that provides suggestions for cost savings on AWS resources.
• C. Deploy the application by using AWS Elastic Beanstalk with default options. Register for an AWS Support Developer plan. Review the instance usage for the application by using Amazon CloudWatch, and identify less expensive instances that can handle the load. Hold monthly meetings to review new instance types and determine whether Reserved Instances should be purchased.
• D. Deploy the application as a Docker image by using Amazon ECS. Set up Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling and Amazon ECS scaling. Register for AWS Business Support and use Trusted Advisor checks to provide suggestions on cost savings.

Correct answer: D

Explanation

Deploying the application as a Docker container on Amazon ECS combined with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling and Amazon ECS scaling automates both application deployment and resource scaling, replacing manual scripts. Subscribing to AWS Business Support unlocks AWS Trusted Advisor, which continuously and automatically evaluates resource utilization to provide cost-saving recommendations on instance sizing. Other options either rely on deprecated tools like CloudFormer, require expensive third-party licensing, or rely on manual, non-automated processes for cost optimization.