Question #735
A retail company needs to run a promotional application for 2 months annually during its peak sales season. The application must remain fully operational without any downtime throughout this period. Which Amazon EC2 purchasing option will MOST cost-effectively fulfill these requirements?
Reserved Instances
Dedicated Hosts
Spot Instances
On-Demand Instances
Explanation
The correct answer is D (On-Demand Instances). Here's why:
- On-Demand Instances (D) charge by the hour with no upfront costs or long-term commitments. For a predictable 2-month workload, this avoids the upfront costs of Reserved Instances or the risk of Spot Instance interruptions.
- Reserved Instances (A) require a 1- or 3-year term for discounts, which is inefficient for a 2-month annual workload.
- Spot Instances (C) offer lower costs but can be terminated abruptly, risking downtime, which violates the requirement.
- Dedicated Hosts (B) are physically isolated servers with higher costs, ideal for compliance/licensing needs, not temporary workloads.
Key Points: Use On-Demand for short-term, uninterrupted workloads; avoid Reserved for non-yearly usage; Spot is unsuitable for critical uptime needs.
Answer
The correct answer is: D