Quick Answer
The answer is Compute Savings Plans. This is the correct choice because Compute Savings Plans apply to any EC2 instance family, any region, and also cover AWS Lambda and Fargate usage, making them ideal for flexible workloads that may shift across instance types or regions. In contrast, EC2 Instance Savings Plans lock you into a specific instance family within a single region, which would not meet the requirement to change families and regions. On the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate SOA-C02 exam, this question tests your understanding of the trade-off between cost savings and flexibility—a common trap is choosing EC2 Instance Savings Plans for steady-state workloads without realizing they restrict future changes. Remember the memory tip: “Compute covers everything; EC2 locks the family.”
This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of cost and performance optimization. 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 company runs a mix of Amazon EC2 instances, Amazon RDS databases, and AWS Lambda functions for production workloads. The workloads are steady-state and predictable. The SysOps administrator wants to reduce costs while maintaining flexibility to change instance families and regions. Which pricing model should be recommended?
EC2 Instance Savings Plans
Why wrong: Locked to a specific instance family in a region.
Compute Savings Plans
Applies to EC2, Fargate, and Lambda across families and regions.
Standard Reserved Instances
Why wrong: Less flexible than Savings Plans for changing instance types.
Spot Instances
Why wrong: Not suitable for steady-state workloads due to potential interruptions.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Compute Savings Plans
Compute Savings Plans provide the most flexibility because they automatically apply to EC2 instances, AWS Lambda, and AWS Fargate usage across any instance family, size, or region, as long as the compute spend stays within the committed hourly amount. This matches the requirement to reduce costs on steady-state workloads while retaining the ability to change instance families and regions, unlike EC2 Instance Savings Plans which are limited to a specific instance family in a region.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
EC2 Instance Savings Plans
Why it's wrong here
Locked to a specific instance family in a region.
Compute Savings Plans
Why this is correct
Applies to EC2, Fargate, and Lambda across families and regions.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Standard Reserved Instances
Why it's wrong here
Less flexible than Savings Plans for changing instance types.
Spot Instances
Why it's wrong here
Not suitable for steady-state workloads due to potential interruptions.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Compute Savings Plans with EC2 Instance Savings Plans, assuming both offer the same flexibility, but Compute Savings Plans are the only option that covers Lambda and Fargate while allowing cross-region and cross-family changes.
Detailed technical explanation
Compute Savings Plans apply to any compute usage that falls under the EC2, Lambda, or Fargate pricing dimensions, measured in dollars per hour of compute spend, not instance-specific attributes. Under the hood, AWS calculates the discount by comparing your committed hourly spend against the On-Demand rates of the resources you use, automatically applying the highest discount to the most flexible usage first. In a real-world scenario, if you commit to $100/hour with Compute Savings Plans, you can run a mix of EC2 instances in us-east-1 and Lambda functions in eu-west-1, and the discount applies across all of them as long as total compute spend exceeds the commitment.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
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
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Cost and Performance Optimization — study guide chapter
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Cost and Performance Optimization practice questions
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FAQ
Cost and Performance Optimization — This question tests Cost and Performance Optimization — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Compute Savings Plans — Compute Savings Plans provide the most flexibility because they automatically apply to EC2 instances, AWS Lambda, and AWS Fargate usage across any instance family, size, or region, as long as the compute spend stays within the committed hourly amount. This matches the requirement to reduce costs on steady-state workloads while retaining the ability to change instance families and regions, unlike EC2 Instance Savings Plans which are limited to a specific instance family in a region.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company runs a production web application on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. The application experiences unpredictable traffic spikes. The operations team wants to optimize costs while maintaining performance during spikes. Which solution is MOST cost-effective?
mediumWhy B: Option C is correct because Savings Plans provide a flexible discount in exchange for a commitment to a consistent amount of compute usage (measured in $/hour) for 1 or 3 years, which can cover EC2, Lambda, and Fargate usage across any instance family, region, or OS. This allows the company to benefit from lower prices while still using On-Demand instances for the remaining flexible portion. Option A is wrong because Reserved Instances are tied to a specific instance family and region, which may be too restrictive if the company needs to change instance types. Option B is wrong because Spot Instances can be interrupted and are not suitable for a production web application that requires high availability. Option D is wrong because Dedicated Hosts are expensive and provide no cost optimization for variable workloads.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
This SOA-C02 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 SOA-C02 exam.
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