A SaaS vendor has a steady 24/7 control plane on ECS and several small event-driven tasks that currently run on a separate always-on service. Management wants the billing discount that applies across both ECS and Lambda usage without committing to a specific instance family. Which two actions are best? Select two.
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.
Best answer
Buy a Compute Savings Plan for the predictable baseline usage.
Correct. A Compute Savings Plan discounts predictable compute spend across ECS and Lambda without binding the team to one instance family. That flexibility matches a mixed compute estate and avoids overcommitting.
Best answer
Move the event-driven tasks to AWS Lambda instead of keeping a separate always-on service.
Correct. Lambda removes idle server cost for small, infrequent tasks and fits event-driven processing well. This lowers operational overhead and avoids paying for a service that mostly waits for work.
Distractor review
Buy an EC2 Instance Savings Plan tied to one instance family for all workloads.
Incorrect. An EC2 Instance Savings Plan is more restrictive than a Compute Savings Plan and does not cover the Lambda portion of the estate. The vendor would lose flexibility without improving coverage.
Distractor review
Use Spot Instances for the control plane because it is the largest bill.
Incorrect. Control planes usually require steady availability and should not depend on interruptible capacity. Spot is a poor fit when service stability matters more than the last increment of savings.
Distractor review
Increase the ECS desired count so Lambda can be removed.
Incorrect. More ECS tasks mean more always-on compute cost, which directly conflicts with the cost-reduction goal. It also adds unnecessary operational burden instead of reducing it.
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: Buy a Compute Savings Plan for the predictable baseline usage. — The best answer is to commit only to the predictable baseline with a Compute Savings Plan and keep the small event-driven tasks serverless. Compute Savings Plans are flexible enough to cover ECS and Lambda, so the company gets one discount model across both workloads. Lambda removes the need for a separate always-on service for sporadic tasks, which eliminates idle cost and reduces administrative overhead. Why others are wrong: An EC2 Instance Savings Plan is too narrow because it does not cover Lambda and locks the vendor into one family. Spot is inappropriate for the control plane because interruptions would threaten availability. Increasing ECS desired count is the opposite of optimization; it increases the always-on footprint instead of removing it.
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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