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mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped

A data engineering team runs a nightly ETL job on EC2. The job can be checkpointed every 5 minutes and can be retried from the last checkpoint if the instance terminates. The job runtime varies from 2 to 4 hours, and the team has no need for a specific instance type, as long as it completes before 7:00 AM local time. They currently run the job on On-Demand EC2, leading to high monthly compute cost.

Which change best reduces cost while maintaining the business deadline?

Question 1mediummultiple choice
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A data engineering team runs a nightly ETL job on EC2. The job can be checkpointed every 5 minutes and can be retried from the last checkpoint if the instance terminates. The job runtime varies from 2 to 4 hours, and the team has no need for a specific instance type, as long as it completes before 7:00 AM local time. They currently run the job on On-Demand EC2, leading to high monthly compute cost.

Which change best reduces cost while maintaining the business deadline?

Full question →

Answer choices

Why each option matters

Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.

A

Best answer

Use Spot Instances for the ETL workload, and configure the job to checkpoint frequently and restart on interruption.

Spot can significantly reduce costs, and checkpointing plus retries mitigate interruption risk.

B

Distractor review

Use Reserved Instances with a 1-year term to lower costs, since reservations provide discounts for any usage.

Reserved Instances discount On-Demand-like capacity but do not exploit the largest discount available for interruptible work.

C

Distractor review

Switch to On-Demand but enable Auto Scaling so the job finishes faster during peak hours.

Auto Scaling can improve speed, but it does not address the primary cost driver of always-on On-Demand usage.

D

Distractor review

Use Spot Instances but disable checkpointing to simplify the application.

Without checkpointing, interruptions can cause substantial recomputation and may miss the 7:00 AM deadline.

Common exam trap

Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic

NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.

Technical deep dive

How to think about this question

NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.

KKey Concepts to Remember

  • Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
  • PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
  • Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
  • NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.

TExam Day Tips

  • Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
  • Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
  • Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.

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More questions from this exam

Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.

Question 1

A team needs to distribute TCP traffic (not HTTP) across multiple services. The services must see the original client source IP for auditing. Which AWS load balancer is the best fit?

Question 2

A team wants to run containerized services with AWS-managed orchestration and autoscaling. They do NOT require Kubernetes compatibility. Which AWS service choice is most appropriate to meet these goals?

Question 3

A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a IoT ingestion API. The objects must never be publicly accessible, even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy. What should the architect configure? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Question 4

A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a claims portal. The objects must never be publicly accessible, even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy. What should the architect configure?

Question 5

A team wants to delegate IAM management to developers, but must ensure developers can never grant themselves permissions beyond a specific limit. Which AWS mechanism best matches this requirement?

Question 6

A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a healthcare document service. The objects must never be publicly accessible, even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy. What should the architect configure?

FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this SAA-C03 question test?

Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Use Spot Instances for the ETL workload, and configure the job to checkpoint frequently and restart on interruption. — The best approach is to use Spot Instances for the ETL job because the workload is explicitly interruption-tolerant when paired with checkpointing and retry. Spot provides the most aggressive pricing among EC2 purchasing options, and checkpointing every 5 minutes limits wasted work if an interruption occurs. Deadline risk is managed by the application’s ability to restart from the last checkpoint. Reserved Instances mainly reduce cost for steady, predictable usage but do not target interruption-based economics like Spot. Keeping On-Demand or removing checkpointing ignores the cost and reliability requirements. Why others are wrong: Reserved Instances can reduce cost versus On-Demand, but they generally cost more than Spot and do not align with interruption-driven optimization. Using Auto Scaling on On-Demand can help performance, not cost, when instances remain On-Demand priced. Disabling checkpointing increases recomputation and makes it difficult to reliably meet the 7:00 AM completion requirement after Spot interruptions.

What should I do if I get this SAA-C03 question wrong?

Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.

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