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Certifications›SAA-C03›Objectives›Design Cost-Optimized Architectures
Objective 4.020% of exam

Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

SAA-C03 Practice Questions

Use this page to practise Design Cost-Optimized Architectures questions for this certification. Focus on how the exam tests design cost-optimized architectures in scenario format — understanding the why behind each answer builds more durable knowledge than memorising options.

Full Practice Test →All Objectives

What this objective tests

SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — Key Topics

Design Cost-Optimized Architectures questions on this certification test your ability to deploy and manage design cost-optimized architectures concepts in scenario-based situations.

  • Core Design Cost-Optimized Architectures concepts and how they apply in real-world cloud scenarios.
  • How to deploy design cost-optimized architectures correctly and verify the outcome.
  • Troubleshooting design cost-optimized architectures issues by interpreting error output and system state.
  • Cloud best practices and Design Cost-Optimized Architectures design trade-offs tested by this certification.

Common exam traps

Where candidates lose marks on Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

  • ⚠Selecting the most expensive service when a simpler managed option meets the requirement.
  • ⚠Forgetting that cloud resources must be explicitly secured — defaults are rarely secure.
  • ⚠Choosing a global service fix when the issue is region-specific.
  • ⚠Overlooking cost implications of cross-region data transfer in architecture questions.

SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — Practice Questions

30 questions from this objective · 20% of your SAA-C03 exam

Question 2easymultiple choice
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You store application logs in an S3 bucket. After 30 days, the logs are rarely accessed, but you must retain them for 1 year for compliance. Which S3 feature is the best way to reduce storage cost while meeting the retention requirement?

Question 3easymultiple choice
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CloudWatch metrics show your EC2 instances have average CPU utilization around 10% with stable performance over several weeks. The application does not require additional headroom right now. What is the most effective cost-optimization action?

Question 4mediummulti select
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A marketing site serves versioned JavaScript and CSS files from Amazon S3 through CloudFront. The origin bill is rising because CloudFront keeps fetching the same files too often, and the application never changes a file at the same URL once it is published. Which two changes should you make? Select two.

Question 5easymultiple choice
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An application serves static images through Amazon CloudFront. The team observes higher-than-expected origin fetches, which increases origin bandwidth costs. Which change most directly improves CloudFront cache reuse to reduce origin requests for the static content?

Question 6easymultiple choice
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Your team runs a batch processing workload on EC2 that can tolerate interruptions. If an instance is terminated, the job can restart from checkpoints. To reduce compute costs, what is the most cost-optimized approach?

Question 7mediummulti select
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An internal rendering job runs on EC2 workers in an Auto Scaling group. Each job writes checkpoints every few minutes to S3 and can resume from the latest checkpoint after an interruption. The queue depth varies sharply, and the team wants the lowest possible compute cost. Which two changes should they make? Select two.

Question 8easymultiple choice
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A company has a steady, predictable workload that must run continuously (24/7) in a single AWS Region. The team wants the lowest cost option available for this steady usage, but also expects they may choose different EC2 instance families in the future (without re-buying compute discounts). Which AWS purchase option best meets these goals?

Question 9hardmatching
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Match each data-retention scenario to the most cost-effective Amazon S3 storage class. Assume the retrieval pattern and access-latency requirement are the most important constraints.

Drag a concept onto its matching description — or click a concept then click the description.

Concepts
Matches

Amazon S3 Standard

Amazon S3 Standard-IA

Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval

Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive

Question 10easymultiple choice
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A web service runs continuously on AWS 24/7. The team expects steady compute usage for the next 12–24 months, but may change instance families/sizes as performance tuning continues. Which purchase option best reduces cost while keeping flexibility to change instance types?

Question 11hardmatching
Full question →

Match each workload to the AWS pricing option that most directly minimizes cost while still meeting the stated flexibility requirements. Use each option once.

Drag a concept onto its matching description — or click a concept then click the description.

Concepts
Matches

Compute Savings Plan

Standard Reserved Instance

Spot Instances

On-Demand Instances

Question 12easymultiple choice
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A team stores application logs in Amazon S3. They need access to the logs only occasionally for troubleshooting (infrequent access), and they want to reduce storage cost automatically over time without manually moving objects. What should they implement?

Question 13easymultiple choice
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Your global users access static images stored in S3. Origin bandwidth costs are higher than expected because CloudFront is not caching effectively. What change most directly reduces origin fetches (and typically lowers data transfer costs) without changing application logic?

Question 14hardmatching
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Match each workload to the most cost-effective compute model or service choice. Focus on how often the workload runs, whether it is interruption-tolerant, and how much administration the team wants to avoid.

Drag a concept onto its matching description — or click a concept then click the description.

Concepts
Matches

AWS Lambda

Amazon ECS on AWS Fargate

EC2 Spot Instances

EC2 On-Demand Instances

Question 15mediummulti select
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A service in private subnets downloads product images from Amazon S3 and stores job state in DynamoDB. A NAT Gateway is currently the only route to AWS services, and the monthly bill is dominated by NAT data processing charges. Which two changes will most directly reduce that cost? Select two.

Question 16hardmatching
Full question →

Match each private-networking or content-delivery scenario to the AWS feature that most directly reduces cost while meeting the connectivity requirement.

Drag a concept onto its matching description — or click a concept then click the description.

Concepts
Matches

Gateway VPC endpoint

Interface VPC endpoint (AWS PrivateLink)

CloudFront with versioned objects and a long cache TTL

CloudFront Origin Shield

Question 17easymultiple choice
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You need to run batch jobs on EC2. The jobs can tolerate interruptions: if an instance is terminated, the job can restart from checkpoints. To reduce compute cost as much as possible, what is the best choice?

Question 18mediummulti select
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A containerized service runs in private subnets and retrieves secrets from AWS Secrets Manager and configuration parameters from AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store on startup. A NAT Gateway is currently used only for these AWS API calls, and the security team wants to eliminate that recurring charge. Which two endpoints should be added? Select two.

Question 19mediummulti select
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A line-of-business application runs on EC2 instances 24/7 with predictable usage for the next year. The application will stay in the same Region, and the team does not want to manage capacity interruptions. Which two purchase options can reduce cost compared with pure On-Demand pricing? Select two.

Question 20mediummulti select
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A compliance archive writes one log file per day to Amazon S3. The logs are almost never accessed after day 30, but if they are needed they must still be retrievable in milliseconds. They must be deleted automatically after one year. Which two lifecycle settings should you apply? Select two.

Question 21easymultiple choice
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A workload runs in private subnets. It must access AWS services such as Amazon S3, but the company wants to avoid using a NAT Gateway to reduce outbound networking costs. What is the best solution?

Question 22hardmulti select
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An application stores user-uploaded binaries in S3. Access is unpredictable for the first month, then most objects become cold. The team wants the cheapest approach that avoids manually guessing access patterns. Which two actions are best? Select two.

Question 23hardmulti select
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A photo studio stores original project archives in Amazon S3. Objects are read heavily for 14 days after upload, occasionally during the next 11 months, and almost never after one year. The team wants the lowest storage cost while keeping retrieval within minutes during the first year. Which three actions are best? Select three.

Question 24hardmulti select
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A media company runs a 24/7 ingestion API on EC2 behind an Application Load Balancer and a nightly transcoding job that can resume from checkpoints. The API fleet runs at roughly 65 percent CPU all day, while the batch workers sit idle most of the time. The company wants to cut compute cost without risking the API. Which two changes should they make? Select two.

Question 25hardmulti select
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A company processes product-image uploads in bursts. Each transform takes up to ten minutes, and every job can be retried safely from the beginning. The current EC2 worker fleet is idle most of the day. Which two changes most reduce cost and idle capacity? Select two.

Question 26hardmulti select
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A product catalog system uses a relational database for orders and a simple key-value profile store for shopping carts. Traffic is unpredictable, and the company wants to avoid paying for large idle database instances. Which two choices are best? Select two.

Question 27hardmulti select
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A SaaS vendor has a steady 24/7 control plane on ECS and several small event-driven tasks that currently run on a separate always-on service. Management wants the billing discount that applies across both ECS and Lambda usage without committing to a specific instance family. Which two actions are best? Select two.

Question 28hardmulti select
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A startup has three sandbox accounts and one production account. The CTO wants lower cost and operational overhead while keeping central purchasing and spend visibility. Which two actions are best? Select two.

Question 29hardmulti select
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A retailer runs a reporting-heavy relational app on Amazon RDS MySQL. Peak dashboard traffic lasts only three hours each day, but the database is sized for the peak all day. The business wants lower cost without rewriting the application. Which three actions are best? Select three.

Question 30hardmulti select
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Multiple teams share one AWS Organization. Finance wants chargeback by project, alerts before overspend, and monthly views by account without manually opening each account. Which three actions best fit? Select three.

Question 31hardmulti select
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A fleet of test servers is rebuilt every week from AMIs. EBS volumes are often left behind after termination, and the team creates daily snapshots of every volume even when nothing changes. Which three actions most reduce storage cost while preserving recovery options? Select three.

More Design Cost-Optimized Architectures questions available in the full practice test.

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Previous objective

Design High-Performing Architectures

All SAA-C03 Objectives

  • 1.Design Secure Architectures30%
  • 2.Design Resilient Architectures26%
  • 3.Design High-Performing Architectures24%
  • 4.Design Cost-Optimized Architectures20%