Question 227 of 302
SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures Practice Question
A development team expects their EC2 utilization to average about 40% of capacity across the next year. They want to lower costs but need flexibility to change instance families and sizes as requirements evolve (for example, moving from compute-optimized to memory-optimized instances). Which AWS purchasing commitment best meets the goal of reducing cost while keeping flexibility?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse Reserved Instances (which lock to a specific instance family) with Savings Plans (which offer cross-family flexibility), leading them to choose Option B for the higher discount without considering the flexibility requirement.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Compute Savings Plans, sized to the expected average usage, because they provide savings across instance families and usage types.
Compute Savings Plans offer the best balance of cost reduction and flexibility for this scenario. They provide up to 66% savings in exchange for a commitment to a consistent amount of compute usage (measured in $/hour), but unlike Reserved Instances, they automatically apply to any EC2 instance family, size, OS, or region (within a given AWS region). This allows the team to switch from compute-optimized to memory-optimized instances as needs evolve without losing the discount, directly meeting the requirement for flexibility while lowering costs.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Compute Savings Plans, sized to the expected average usage, because they provide savings across instance families and usage types.
Why this is correct
Compute Savings Plans provide a discount for a consistent amount of EC2 (and related covered usage) in a region while allowing flexibility to change instance families and sizes within the covered scope. Because the team’s requirements may evolve and they primarily need to manage average utilization (40% baseline), Compute Savings Plans match both the cost-reduction goal and the flexibility requirement better than instance-specific commitments.
- ✗
All Upfront EC2 Instance Reserved Instances for a single instance family to maximize discount.
Why it's wrong here
EC2 Instance Reserved Instances are scoped to specific instance attributes (including instance family and typically additional attributes like operating system/tenancy). If the team needs to switch instance families as requirements change, the discount may not apply to new families, reducing flexibility and potentially reducing savings.
- ✗
Spot Instances for the entire workload so they can avoid commitments entirely.
Why it's wrong here
Spot can reduce cost, but it is not a commitment that guarantees baseline capacity. The prompt specifically asks for a purchasing commitment that reduces cost while keeping flexibility around instance family and size. Spot also introduces interruption and capacity variability that are not part of the stated requirement.
- ✗
On-Demand Instances with increased Auto Scaling to match the peak month only.
Why it's wrong here
Using On-Demand with scaling to the peak month does not satisfy the objective of reducing cost via purchasing commitments. Scaling to peak capacity increases spend relative to a 40% average-utilization target and removes the primary cost lever (discounted commitment) described in the prompt.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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