Question #1998
A company is developing a social media platform that utilizes a relational database to manage user interactions and post metadata. The platform is expected to experience highly variable traffic, predominantly read-heavy with sporadic write operations during peak events. The company prioritizes cost efficiency and seeks a managed AWS database solution that dynamically scales to meet demand without manual intervention.
Which option provides the MOST cost-effective solution while satisfying the performance requirements?
Deploy the database on Amazon RDS using Provisioned IOPS SSD storage to maintain consistent performance for both read and write operations.
Deploy the database on Amazon Aurora Serverless, which automatically scales the database's capacity up or down based on the application's needs.
Deploy the database on Amazon DynamoDB with on-demand capacity mode to adjust throughput automatically as workload demands change.
Deploy the database on Amazon RDS with General Purpose SSD storage and utilize read replicas to handle increased read traffic.
Explanation
The correct answer is B (Amazon Aurora Serverless). Here's why:
- Aurora Serverless is a fully managed, auto-scaling configuration for Amazon Aurora (a relational database). It automatically adjusts database capacity based on application demand, making it ideal for variable workloads. This eliminates the need for manual scaling, ensuring cost efficiency by charging only for resources consumed.
- Option A (RDS with Provisioned IOPS) requires pre-provisioned capacity, leading to higher costs during low-traffic periods and manual scaling efforts.
- Option C (DynamoDB) is a NoSQL database, which does not meet the relational database requirement specified in the question.
- Option D (RDS with read replicas) requires manual management of read replicas and does not address scaling for sporadic write operations during peak events.
Key Points: Aurora Serverless combines relational database compatibility, automatic scaling, and pay-per-use pricing, making it the most cost-effective and performance-aligned solution for the scenario.
Answer
The correct answer is: B