A marketing team runs a report-generation process that must execute once per day at 02:00 UTC. It usually completes in 10315 minutes, but sometimes takes up to 45 minutes due to varying data volumes. They currently run the workload on an EC2 instance that is always on, which wastes money during off-hours. The team wants to minimize operational overhead and pay mainly for actual execution time.
What is the best architecture choice?
Answer choices
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
Use a scheduled Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling group that keeps a minimum of one instance running at all times.
Keeping a minimum instance reduces savings and still requires EC2 operational management.
Use an EventBridge schedule to run the report as an Amazon ECS task on AWS Fargate and write results to S3.
Fargate allows the containerized job to run only when scheduled, so the team pays for task runtime instead of keeping an EC2 instance always on.
Use AWS Lambda triggered by an EventBridge schedule at 02:00 UTC and write results to S3.
Lambda has a 15-minute maximum runtime, so it cannot reliably handle a workload that may take up to 45 minutes.
Use an EMR cluster provisioned daily with manual teardown to ensure the instance is always available before 02:00.
EMR provisioning overhead and operational complexity are typically unnecessary for a daily report process.
Common exam trap
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
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Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
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FAQ
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
The correct answer is: Use an EventBridge schedule to run the report as an Amazon ECS task on AWS Fargate and write results to S3. — An EventBridge-scheduled Amazon ECS task on AWS Fargate is the best match because the workload runs only once per day, sometimes for as long as 45 minutes, and the team wants to pay mainly for actual execution time while minimizing operational overhead. Fargate removes the need to manage EC2 instances and supports longer-running containerized jobs. Lambda is not suitable because its maximum runtime is 15 minutes. Always-on EC2 or a continuously running Fargate service still incurs baseline compute charges. EMR is generally too heavy for this use case. Why others are wrong: Keeping an EC2 Auto Scaling group at a minimum of one instance still leaves the team paying for idle compute and managing the instance lifecycle. Lambda cannot be used because the workload can exceed the 15-minute execution limit. EMR adds unnecessary provisioning and operational complexity for a simple daily report job.
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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