CompTIA Cloud Essentials+ (CLO-002) — Question 40

A business analyst is examining a report and notices compute costs are very high for four cloud-based, load-balanced virtual machines hosting an application. The application will be in use for at least two more years, but there are no developers available to help optimize it. Which of the following should the analyst recommend to BEST reduce costs without impacting performance?

Answer options

• A. Decommission a virtual machine.
• B. Change to a pay-as-you-go plan.
• C. Convert the application to a SaaS solution.
• D. Switch the virtual machines to reserved instances.

Correct answer: D

Explanation

Switching to reserved instances allows for significant cost savings over the long term as it provides a lower rate in exchange for committing to using the virtual machines for a set period. Decommissioning a virtual machine could negatively affect application performance, while changing to a pay-as-you-go plan may increase costs. Converting the application to a SaaS solution is not feasible without developer input and may not address the immediate cost concern.