SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures Practice Question
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.
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates assume DynamoDB is always cheaper for any workload, ignoring the need for application rewrites and the relational reporting requirements, while also overlooking that increasing IOPS always raises costs rather than lowering them.
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
✓
Right-size the writer based on actual utilization instead of peak guesses.
Right-sizing the RDS instance based on actual utilization metrics (e.g., CPU, memory, connections) rather than peak guesses directly reduces compute and memory costs. Since the peak dashboard traffic lasts only three hours, the database can be scaled down for the remaining 21 hours, avoiding over-provisioning. This is a fundamental cost-optimization strategy for RDS without requiring application changes.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Right-size the writer based on actual utilization instead of peak guesses.
Why this is correct
Correct. Right-sizing removes waste from the always-on primary instance. If the writer is sized for real load rather than a worst-case assumption, the company pays for less unused compute.
- ✓
Add read replicas and direct dashboard traffic away from the writer.
Why this is correct
Correct. Read replicas let read-heavy dashboards scale without forcing the writer to be oversized for every query. This improves scaling economics while keeping the application relational and largely unchanged.
- ✓
Evaluate Aurora MySQL if the current replica-heavy design would be cheaper there.
Why this is correct
Correct. Aurora can be more cost-efficient than a replica-heavy RDS topology because storage is shared across the cluster and replicas are simpler to operate. It is a reasonable tradeoff to evaluate when read scaling is the main issue.
- ✗
Migrate to DynamoDB immediately because every relational workload is more expensive.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. DynamoDB is not a drop-in replacement for a relational reporting app. A rewrite would be required, and the query pattern may not fit key-value access at all.
- ✗
Increase provisioned IOPS permanently so the monthly bill drops.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. More provisioned IOPS increases cost, not decreases it. The issue is overprovisioned compute and topology, not a lack of enough disk performance everywhere.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
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This SAA-C03 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the SAA-C03 exam.