Amazon Web Services Updated SAA-C03 Exam Questions and Answers by theodora

For improving availability and performance of the hybrid application, the following solutions are optimal:

AWS Global Accelerator (Option A): Global Accelerator provides high availability and improves performance by using the AWS global network to route user traffic to the nearest healthy endpoint (across AWS Regions). By adding the Network Load Balancers as endpoints, Global Accelerator ensures that traffic is routed efficiently to the closest endpoint, improving both availability and performance.

Network Load Balancer (Option D): Thestateful TCP-based workloadhosted on Amazon EC2 instances and thestateless UDP-based workloadhosted on-premises are best served by Network Load Balancers (NLBs). NLBs are designed to handle TCP and UDP traffic with ultra-low latency and can route traffic to both EC2 and on-premises endpoints.

Option B (CloudFront and Route 53): CloudFront is better suited for HTTP/HTTPS workloads, not for TCP/UDP-based applications.

Option C (ALB): Application Load Balancers do not support the stateless UDP-based workload, making NLBs the better choice for both TCP and UDP.

AWS References:

AWS Global Accelerator

Network Load Balancer

Cluster Placement Group: This type of placement group is designed to provide low-latency network performance and high throughput by grouping instances within a single Availability Zone. It is ideal for applications that require tightly coupled node-to-node communication.

Configuration:

When launching EC2 instances, specify the option to launch them in a cluster placement group.

This ensures that the instances are physically located close to each other, reducing latency and increasing network throughput.

Benefits:

Low-Latency Communication: Instances in a cluster placement group benefit from enhanced networking capabilities, enabling low-latency communication.

High Network Throughput: The network performance within a cluster placement group is optimized for high throughput, which is essential for HPC workloads.

Amazon Athenais a serverless query service that allows you to run SQL queries directly on data stored in Amazon S3 without the need for a data warehouse. It is cost-effective because you only pay for the queries you run, and it can handleApache Parquetfiles efficiently. Additionally, Athena integrates with KMS, making it suitable for querying encrypted data.

Key AWS features:

Cost-Effective: Athena charges only for the data scanned by the queries, making it a more cost-effective solution compared to Redshift or EMR for occasional queries.

Direct S3 Querying: Athena supports querying data directly in S3, including Parquet files, without needing to move the data.

AWS Documentation: Athena's compatibility with encrypted Parquet files in S3 makes it the ideal choice for this scenario, reducing both cost and complexity​​.

Compute Savings Plansoffer the most flexible and cost-effective solution for the production instances, as they provide significant savings (up to 66%) for both EC2 and AWS Lambda usage, while allowing flexibility in the type of instance family, size, and even region. For nonproduction instances, usingOn-Demand Instancesensures you only pay for the instances when they are running, and shutting them down during off-hours further optimizes cost.

Key AWS features:

Compute Savings Plans: Provide savings based on consistent usage, making it ideal for production environments with steady load.

On-Demand Instances: Suitable for nonproduction environments that are used intermittently. Shutting them down when not in use avoids unnecessary costs.

AWS Documentation: According to AWS's cost optimization best practices, using a combination of Savings Plans for production and On-Demand Instances for nonproduction environments that are used sparingly results in optimal cost savings​​.