Cost and Performance Optimization

A SysOps administrator manages a development AWS account where engineers frequently leave EC2 instances running overnight. Management wants an automated control that not only alerts the team when monthly EC2 spend exceeds $2,000 but also automatically applies a restrictive IAM policy to prevent launching additional instances once the threshold is crossed. Which solution meets these requirements with the least custom development?

A SysOps administrator is tasked with reducing EC2 costs for a fleet of on-demand instances running a set of internal web applications. Analysis shows that many instances consistently run at under 10% average CPU utilization and low network throughput throughout the month. Management wants a data-driven approach to identify specific instances that are over-provisioned and receive recommendations for smaller instance types before making any changes. Which AWS tool provides this capability with the least effort?

A SysOps administrator purchased a Compute Savings Plan three months ago to cover a steady EC2 workload. Finance now reports the company is still receiving large on-demand charges each month. The administrator needs to determine whether the commitment is too small (leaving usage uncovered) or whether the purchased commitment is being wasted. Which combination of Cost Explorer reports should the administrator review to make this determination?

A SysOps administrator needs to provide the finance team with the ability to run ad-hoc SQL queries that break down AWS spend by specific resource tags, individual line items, and hourly usage across all linked accounts in an organization. Cost Explorer's predefined views do not offer the granularity finance requires. Which solution provides this level of detail most effectively?

A SysOps administrator manages 200 EBS gp2 volumes attached to production EC2 instances. CloudWatch metrics show the volumes consistently operate well below their baseline IOPS, and the finance team wants to reduce storage costs without impacting the online (attached) workloads. What is the MOST cost-effective action the administrator should take?

A SysOps administrator manages a self-hosted PostgreSQL database on an EC2 instance using a 500 GB gp2 EBS volume. During peak reporting periods, CloudWatch shows VolumeQueueLength spiking and application latency increasing, even though the volume is only 60% full. The team wants to improve consistent I/O performance while reducing storage cost. What is the MOST cost-effective way to meet the performance requirement?

A SysOps administrator manages a self-managed relational database on a single EC2 instance. The database workload is characterized by small, random I/O operations and requires sub-millisecond latency with a sustained 32,000 IOPS. The application team also demands 99.999% volume durability for the transaction logs. The current gp3 volume is hitting its provisioned IOPS ceiling and experiencing queue depth spikes. Which EBS volume type should the administrator choose to meet these requirements?

A SysOps administrator manages a self-managed transactional database on an EC2 instance. The application requires sustained 25,000 IOPS with consistent single-digit millisecond latency, and the business demands 99.999% volume durability. CloudWatch shows the current gp3 volume is frequently hitting its IOPS ceiling during peak transaction processing, causing query timeouts. Which EBS configuration should the administrator choose to meet the performance and durability requirements?

A SysOps administrator manages a self-hosted PostgreSQL database on an EC2 instance. Users report slow query performance during peak hours. CloudWatch metrics show the attached General Purpose SSD (gp2) volume consistently hitting its burst balance depletion, and VolumeReadOps/VolumeWriteOps indicate a small-random-I/O workload requiring a sustained 12,000 IOPS at 250 GiB of stored data. The team wants to eliminate the throttling while keeping costs as low as possible. Which action best meets these requirements?

A SysOps administrator runs a small web application on a t3.medium instance in the default (Standard) burstable mode. During business hours the application experiences sustained CPU usage well above the instance's baseline, and users report slow response times. CloudWatch shows the CPUCreditBalance dropping to zero during these periods, after which CPU is throttled. The team wants to eliminate the throttling while keeping costs as low as possible for an unpredictable, occasionally sustained workload. What is the MOST cost-effective way to address this?

A SysOps administrator manages a production workload that runs a steady baseline of EC2 instances 24/7. Over the next year the team plans to migrate some workloads from the m5 family to the newer m6i family and may also shift a portion of compute to AWS Fargate. Finance wants to commit to a discount that maximizes savings on the steady baseline while remaining flexible across instance families, sizes, Regions, and even Fargate. Which purchasing option best meets these requirements?

A SysOps administrator manages a fleet of 40 m5.2xlarge EC2 instances running a web application. Over the past 30 days, CloudWatch shows average CPU utilization of 8% and peak CPU of 15%. The team wants to reduce compute costs while maintaining current performance. Before recommending a smaller instance size, the administrator wants to confirm that the workload is not memory-bound. What is the correct first step to obtain the data needed?

A SysOps administrator manages a steady baseline of compute that currently runs on m5.large On-Demand instances across two Regions. The team plans to migrate some workloads to c6i instances and a portion to AWS Fargate over the next year, but they want to commit now to reduce costs on their consistent baseline usage. They need the maximum discount while retaining the flexibility to change instance families, sizes, and even Regions without losing the committed discount. Which purchasing option best meets these requirements?

A SysOps administrator manages a web application backed by an Amazon RDS for MySQL database. During peak hours, CloudWatch shows that the RDS instance's CPU is consistently above 90% and read latency has increased significantly. Analysis reveals that the same set of product catalog queries (which change infrequently) are being executed thousands of times per minute. The team wants to reduce the load on the database and improve response times with minimal application redesign. Which approach BEST addresses this situation?

A company runs a fixed baseline of 20 m6i.large EC2 instances that operate 24/7 in a single Region and have done so for over two years with no plans to change instance family or size. Finance has approved a lump-sum capital budget to reduce compute costs as much as possible. Which purchase commitment provides the LARGEST discount for this workload?

A media company stores 50 TB of processed video assets in an S3 bucket. Some assets are accessed frequently for weeks after publishing, then rarely touched, while others suddenly become popular again months later during unpredictable viral events. The SysOps team wants to minimize storage costs without risking retrieval delays or manual lifecycle tuning for objects whose access patterns cannot be forecasted. Which approach best meets these requirements?

A company stores application audit logs in an S3 bucket. Logs must be immediately searchable for the first 30 days, then are rarely accessed but must be retained for 7 years to meet compliance requirements. Retrieval of older logs, when needed, can tolerate a delay of up to 12 hours. The SysOps administrator wants to minimize storage costs while meeting these requirements. Which S3 lifecycle configuration is MOST cost-effective?

A company runs a nightly batch video-transcoding job on a fleet of EC2 instances. The job is stateless, writes results to Amazon S3 as each file completes, and can restart individual tasks from a queue if an instance is lost. The finance team wants the SysOps administrator to reduce compute costs for this workload by as much as possible while keeping the job able to complete within its overnight window. Which purchasing option should be used for the transcoding instances?