SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures Practice Question
This SAA-C03 practice question tests your understanding of design cost-optimized architectures. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. A key principle to apply: compute Savings Plans offer discounts for a committed spend.. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A production internal reporting portal runs continuously on EC2 with predictable usage for the next three years. The team wants a discount while retaining some instance-family flexibility. What should they buy? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.
Why wrong: Spot is interruptible and not ideal for always-on production baselines.
B
Dedicated Instances
Why wrong: Dedicated Instances isolate hardware but do not primarily optimize cost.
C
Compute Savings Plan
Compute Savings Plans provide discounts for a committed spend while allowing flexibility across instance families, sizes, Regions, and compute services.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Compute Savings Plan
Compute Savings Plans offer the lowest prices on EC2 instance usage (up to 66% off On-Demand) in exchange for a 1- or 3-year commitment, while allowing flexibility across instance families, sizes, OS, and regions. This matches the requirement for a discount on predictable, continuous usage without locking into a specific instance type, and requires no custom scripts.
Key principle: Compute Savings Plans offer discounts for a committed spend.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Spot Instances only
Why it's wrong here
Spot is interruptible and not ideal for always-on production baselines.
✗
Dedicated Instances
Why it's wrong here
Dedicated Instances isolate hardware but do not primarily optimize cost.
✓
Compute Savings Plan
Why this is correct
Compute Savings Plans provide discounts for a committed spend while allowing flexibility across instance families, sizes, Regions, and compute services.
Related concept
Compute Savings Plans offer discounts for a committed spend.
✗
S3 Intelligent-Tiering
Why it's wrong here
S3 Intelligent-Tiering optimizes object storage, not EC2 compute spend.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse Savings Plans with Reserved Instances, assuming they require instance-family lock-in, or they incorrectly apply storage services (S3 Intelligent-Tiering) to compute cost optimization.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Compute Savings Plans apply to any EC2 instance (including Fargate and Lambda) and automatically discount usage up to the committed hourly spend; any usage beyond the commitment is charged at On-Demand rates. Unlike Reserved Instances, which lock to a specific instance family within a region, Compute Savings Plans allow you to change instance families (e.g., from m5 to c5) without renegotiating the plan. This flexibility is critical for evolving workloads where instance family needs may shift over a 3-year term.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Compute Savings Plans offer discounts for a committed spend.
They provide flexibility across EC2 instance family, size, Region, and OS.
Commitment terms are typically one or three years.
Savings Plans automatically apply to eligible compute usage.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Compute Savings Plans offer discounts for a committed spend.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Review compute Savings Plans offer discounts for a committed spend., then practise related SAA-C03 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.
Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — This question tests Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — Compute Savings Plans offer discounts for a committed spend..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Compute Savings Plan — Compute Savings Plans offer the lowest prices on EC2 instance usage (up to 66% off On-Demand) in exchange for a 1- or 3-year commitment, while allowing flexibility across instance families, sizes, OS, and regions. This matches the requirement for a discount on predictable, continuous usage without locking into a specific instance type, and requires no custom scripts.
What should I do if I get this SAA-C03 question wrong?
Review compute Savings Plans offer discounts for a committed spend., then practise related SAA-C03 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Compute Savings Plans offer discounts for a committed spend.
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