Objective 4.020% of exam

Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

SAA-C03 Practice Questions

Design Cost-Optimized Architectures is 20% of SAA-C03 and tests whether you can pick the cheapest AWS design that still meets availability, performance, and durability requirements. Expect scenario questions on S3 storage classes and lifecycle rules, EC2 purchasing options, EBS volume types, RDS/Aurora choices, data transfer costs, and right-sizing versus elasticity trade-offs.

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What this objective tests

SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — Key Topics

Match workloads to the cheapest AWS option that still meets requirements: S3 lifecycle rules to Glacier, Spot/Reserved/Savings Plans for EC2, gp3 over gp2, and Aurora Serverless. Get right that cost decisions never break availability, durability, or performance.

Selecting EC2 purchasing options: On-Demand, Reserved, Savings Plans, Spot, and Dedicated Hosts
Choosing S3 storage classes and lifecycle transitions, including Intelligent-Tiering and Glacier tiers
Matching EBS volume types (gp3, io2, st1, sc1) and snapshot costs to workload needs
Reducing cost with Auto Scaling, Lambda, serverless, and avoiding cross-AZ or NAT data transfer

Common exam traps

Where candidates lose marks on Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

⚠Assuming Spot Instances suit any workload; they can be interrupted, so they fail for stateful or uptime-critical systems unless architected for interruption.
⚠Ignoring data transfer and NAT Gateway charges, which can exceed compute costs in multi-AZ or internet-heavy designs.
⚠Overlooking S3 lifecycle minimum storage durations and retrieval fees, making Glacier or Infrequent Access more expensive than expected.

SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — Practice Questions

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

Question 2mediummulti select

Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — Key Topics

Where candidates lose marks on Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — Practice Questions

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A company keeps daily database backups in an S3 bucket. They may restore from backups during the first 30 days if there is an issue. After 30 days, backups are rarely restored, but must be retained for 2 years. Which lifecycle strategy most cost-effectively meets these requirements?

All SAA-C03 Objectives

Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — Key Topics

Where candidates lose marks on Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — Practice Questions

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A company keeps daily database backups in an S3 bucket. They may restore from backups during the first 30 days if there is an issue. After 30 days, backups are rarely restored, but must be retained for 2 years. Which lifecycle strategy most cost-effectively meets these requirements?

All SAA-C03 Objectives