- A
Increase provisioned concurrency to 100 so that cold starts never occur, regardless of traffic patterns.
Why wrong: Higher provisioned concurrency increases cost and does not address idle spend during low traffic periods.
- B
Use Application Auto Scaling scheduled actions to increase provisioned concurrency on the Lambda alias before campaign windows and reduce it to a minimal baseline afterward.
Provisioned concurrency is billed while allocated, even when idle. Scheduling higher provisioned concurrency only during known spike windows reduces idle cost while preserving fast startup behavior during campaigns.
- C
Turn provisioned concurrency off permanently and rely on retries at the client side to mask cold starts.
Why wrong: Disabling provisioned concurrency reintroduces cold starts and may degrade user experience, especially during spikes.
- D
Replace Lambda with a single always-on EC2 instance sized for peak demand to eliminate cold starts.
Why wrong: Always-on instances can be more expensive during idle periods and contradict the serverless cost tradeoff goal.
Quick Answer
The answer is to use Application Auto Scaling scheduled actions to adjust provisioned concurrency on the Lambda alias. This is correct because it directly addresses the core cost optimization challenge: idle provisioned capacity incurs charges even when no requests are processed, so dynamically scaling provisioned concurrency up before known traffic spikes and down to a minimal baseline during low-traffic periods eliminates waste while preserving fast initial responses. On the SAA-C03 exam, this scenario tests your understanding that provisioned concurrency is a warm-start solution, not a fixed-cost resource—the common trap is assuming you must keep it static at peak levels or that on-demand scaling alone suffices for latency-sensitive APIs. A key memory tip: think of provisioned concurrency as a “reserved seat” that you can schedule to appear only when the audience arrives, rather than paying for an empty theater all week.
SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures Practice Question
This SAA-C03 practice question tests your understanding of design cost-optimized architectures. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. 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 latency-sensitive API is implemented with AWS Lambda. The team enabled provisioned concurrency to avoid cold starts, setting provisioned concurrency to 50 because marketing campaigns occasionally cause spikes. However, during most weekdays the API receives little traffic (near zero), and the team is seeing high monthly Lambda costs from idle provisioned capacity. What is the best cost-optimized strategy that still meets the requirement of fast initial responses during traffic spikes?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue:
"best"Why it matters: Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
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
Use Application Auto Scaling scheduled actions to increase provisioned concurrency on the Lambda alias before campaign windows and reduce it to a minimal baseline afterward.
Option B is correct because it uses Application Auto Scaling scheduled actions to dynamically adjust provisioned concurrency, scaling up to 50 before marketing campaigns and reducing to a minimal baseline (e.g., 1-5) during low-traffic weekdays. This eliminates idle capacity costs while ensuring fast initial responses during spikes, as provisioned concurrency keeps Lambda environments warm and ready to handle requests without cold starts.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase provisioned concurrency to 100 so that cold starts never occur, regardless of traffic patterns.
Why it's wrong here
Higher provisioned concurrency increases cost and does not address idle spend during low traffic periods.
- ✓
Use Application Auto Scaling scheduled actions to increase provisioned concurrency on the Lambda alias before campaign windows and reduce it to a minimal baseline afterward.
Why this is correct
Provisioned concurrency is billed while allocated, even when idle. Scheduling higher provisioned concurrency only during known spike windows reduces idle cost while preserving fast startup behavior during campaigns.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "best" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Turn provisioned concurrency off permanently and rely on retries at the client side to mask cold starts.
Why it's wrong here
Disabling provisioned concurrency reintroduces cold starts and may degrade user experience, especially during spikes.
- ✗
Replace Lambda with a single always-on EC2 instance sized for peak demand to eliminate cold starts.
Why it's wrong here
Always-on instances can be more expensive during idle periods and contradict the serverless cost tradeoff goal.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates may assume provisioned concurrency must be set to a static high value to handle spikes, ignoring AWS's native Auto Scaling capabilities that can dynamically adjust capacity based on schedule or metrics, thus missing the cost-optimization aspect of the question.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Provisioned concurrency in AWS Lambda initializes a specified number of execution environments ahead of time, keeping them warm and ready to handle requests with sub-millisecond startup latency. Application Auto Scaling can schedule these adjustments using cron-like expressions (e.g., AWS CLI or CloudWatch Events) to match predictable traffic patterns, such as marketing campaign windows, while setting a minimal baseline (e.g., 1) during off-peak hours to avoid idle costs. Under the hood, Lambda allocates resources from a pool of available concurrency in the region (default 1000), and provisioned concurrency counts against this limit, so careful planning is needed to avoid throttling.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
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
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
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.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SAA-C03 question test?
Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — This question tests Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Use Application Auto Scaling scheduled actions to increase provisioned concurrency on the Lambda alias before campaign windows and reduce it to a minimal baseline afterward. — Option B is correct because it uses Application Auto Scaling scheduled actions to dynamically adjust provisioned concurrency, scaling up to 50 before marketing campaigns and reducing to a minimal baseline (e.g., 1-5) during low-traffic weekdays. This eliminates idle capacity costs while ensuring fast initial responses during spikes, as provisioned concurrency keeps Lambda environments warm and ready to handle requests without cold starts.
What should I do if I get this SAA-C03 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "best". Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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.
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