CV0-004 Operations and Support Practice Question
A company is planning to migrate to AWS and wants to achieve the lowest possible compute costs for a steady-state workload that will run 24/7. Which purchasing option should be recommended?
⚠ Common exam trap
CV0-004 often tests the trade-off between cost and reliability, tempting candidates to choose Spot Instances for their low price while ignoring the interruption risk for a 24/7 steady-state workload.
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
✓
Reserved Instances
Reserved Instances provide a significant discount (up to 72%) compared to On-Demand pricing in exchange for a one- or three-year commitment, making them ideal for steady-state workloads that run 24/7. Because the workload is predictable and continuous, the commitment is easily justified and the effective hourly cost is minimized. This is the standard AWS recommendation for long-running, stable compute.
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
Why it's wrong here
Spot Instances use spare capacity at steep discounts but AWS can reclaim them with two minutes' notice, so they cannot sustain a 24/7 steady-state workload. They suit fault-tolerant, interruptible batch or stateless processing, not continuous production baselines.
- ✓
Reserved Instances
Why this is correct
Reserved Instances suit steady-state, 24/7 workloads by exchanging a one- or three-year term commitment for a significant discount against On-Demand pricing, directly satisfying the lowest-possible-compute-cost constraint. Unlike Spot Instances, capacity is not interruptible, so continuous availability is preserved without the premium of On-Demand rates.
- ✗
On-Demand Instances
Why it's wrong here
On-Demand billing charges the full hourly rate with no commitment discount, so a 24/7 steady-state workload pays the highest compute price. It suits unpredictable, short-lived or spiky workloads where flexibility outweighs savings, not continuous baselines.
- ✗
Dedicated Hosts
Why it's wrong here
Dedicated Hosts allocate physical servers for licensing and compliance requirements, billed per host regardless of utilisation, so they raise rather than lower steady-state compute costs. They suit bring-your-own-licence or regulatory isolation scenarios, not cost minimisation.
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About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every CV0-004 question from scratch — 834 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official CompTIA exam blueprint
This CV0-004 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA 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 CV0-004 exam.