Question #1739
A media company runs its video processing application on AWS. The application processes each video in about 30 minutes. The application is built as a monolith that runs on a single Amazon EC2 instance. The application requires frequent updates to its tightly coupled modules. The application becomes complex to maintain as the company adds new features. Each time the company patches a software module, the application experiences downtime. Video processing must restart from the beginning after any interruptions. The company wants to redesign the application to be flexible, scalable, and allow gradual improvements with minimal downtime. Which solution meets these requirements?
Run the application on AWS Lambda as a single function with maximum provisioned concurrency.
Run the application on Amazon EC2 Spot Instances as microservices with a Spot Fleet default allocation strategy.
Run the application on Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) as microservices with service auto scaling.
Run the application on AWS Elastic Beanstalk as a single application environment with an all-at-once deployment strategy.
Explanation
Answer C is correct because:
1. Microservices Architecture: Breaking the monolith into microservices (via ECS) decouples tightly coupled modules, enabling independent updates without full downtime.
2. Minimal Downtime: ECS supports rolling updates and blue/green deployments, ensuring minimal downtime during patches.
3. Scalability: Service auto scaling adjusts resources based on demand, improving flexibility.
4. Fault Isolation: Failures in one microservice do not disrupt the entire application.
Other options fail because:
- A: Lambda's 15-minute timeout conflicts with 30-minute video processing. A single function retains monolith issues.
- B: Spot Instances risk interruptions, causing restarts. Spot Fleet doesn't resolve deployment downtime.
- D: All-at-once deployment causes downtime, and Elastic Beanstalk doesn't address the monolith structure.
Key Points: Microservices, containerization (ECS), auto scaling, and deployment strategies are critical for scalability and minimal downtime.
Answer
The correct answer is: C