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🇺🇸 AWS Certified Solutions Architect · flashcards
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Design Cost-Optimized Architectures Flashcards
51 question-and-answer cards covering Design Cost-Optimized Architectures as it is examined in AWS Certified Solutions Architect. 24 of them are printed below, taken from across the deck — no signup, no paywall on the preview.
24 sample cards from the Design Cost-Optimized Architectures deck
Sampled from the end of the deck, so these are different cards from the ones shown on the syllabus page.
How does CloudFront help lower data transfer costs?
Caching at edge locations reduces origin fetches, and CloudFront egress rates to the internet are lower than direct EC2/S3 egress (plus free transfer from S3/EC2 origins to CloudFront).
What is a common costly mistake with NAT Gateways?
Routing high-volume traffic (including to AWS services) through a NAT Gateway incurs hourly + per-GB processing charges; use VPC/Gateway endpoints or place resources appropriately to avoid it.
Is data transfer between EC2 instances in the same AZ using private IPs free?
Yes — same-AZ traffic over private IPv4 addresses is free; using public IPs or crossing AZs/regions incurs charges.
Which RDS/Aurora purchasing option reduces database cost for steady workloads?
Reserved DB Instances — 1 or 3 year commitments giving large discounts over On-Demand for predictable, always-on databases.
How does Aurora Serverless v2 optimize database cost?
It auto-scales capacity in fine-grained ACU increments to match load and scales down during low usage, so you pay only for the capacity actually consumed.
For variable/unpredictable DynamoDB traffic, which capacity mode is most cost-effective?
On-Demand capacity mode — pay per request with no capacity planning; use Provisioned (with Auto Scaling/reserved capacity) for steady, predictable traffic to save more.
How can read replicas or caching reduce database cost?
Offloading reads to replicas or an in-memory cache (ElastiCache/DAX) lets you use a smaller primary instance and avoid scaling up the expensive write tier.
What DynamoDB feature automatically removes stale items to save storage cost?
Time to Live (TTL) — it deletes expired items automatically at no extra cost, reducing stored data and table size.
What does AWS Budgets do?
Lets you set custom cost/usage (or RI/SP utilization/coverage) thresholds and triggers alerts or automated actions when actual or forecasted spend exceeds them.
What is the difference between Cost Explorer and AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR)?
Cost Explorer gives interactive visualization/forecasting; the CUR is the most detailed line-item dataset (delivered to S3, queryable via Athena/QuickSight) for deep analysis.
What is AWS Budgets Actions used for?
To automatically respond when a budget is breached — e.g., apply an IAM/SCP policy, stop EC2/RDS instances, or send approvals — to enforce cost controls.
What does AWS Cost Anomaly Detection do?
Uses ML to monitor spend and automatically alert you to unusual cost spikes by service, account, or category, with root-cause analysis.
Which free AWS tool reviews your account for cost optimization (and other pillars)?
AWS Trusted Advisor — its cost optimization checks flag idle/underutilized resources, unassociated EIPs, idle load balancers, and RI opportunities.
What is the AWS Pricing Calculator used for?
Estimating the cost of an architecture before deployment by modeling services, usage, and pricing options to compare design choices.
What kinds of resources does Trusted Advisor flag as idle/wasted spend?
Low-utilization EC2 instances, idle load balancers and RDS, unattached EBS volumes, unassociated Elastic IPs, and under-provisioned RIs/Savings Plans.
What is 'right-sizing' and why is it the first cost-optimization step?
Matching instance/resource size to actual workload demand (using metrics) to eliminate over-provisioning — typically the largest, lowest-risk savings before buying commitments.
What does the Savings Plans recommendation in Cost Explorer provide?
It analyzes past usage to recommend a commitment level (hourly $) and term that maximizes savings without over-committing.
Why purchase commitments (RIs/Savings Plans) only after right-sizing?
Committing to oversized resources locks in waste for 1-3 years; right-size first, then buy commitments on the optimized baseline.
How does Auto Scaling contribute to cost optimization?
It adds capacity only when demand requires and removes it when idle (scheduled or dynamic), so you don't pay for over-provisioned steady-state capacity.
How do AWS Organizations enable consolidated cost benefits?
Consolidated billing aggregates usage across accounts to share volume discounts and RI/Savings Plan benefits, with one bill and per-account cost visibility.
What are Service Control Policies (SCPs) and how do they aid cost control?
Org-level guardrails that restrict which services/regions/instance types accounts can use, preventing costly or non-compliant resource creation.
What is AWS Control Tower's role in cost governance?
It sets up a multi-account landing zone with guardrails and centralized policies, helping enforce consistent cost and security controls across the organization.
How do cost categories help large organizations?
They group costs into custom business dimensions (team, product, cost center) using rules, enabling chargeback/showback and clearer reporting across many accounts.
What is the benefit of a multi-account strategy for cost management?
Separating workloads/teams/environments into accounts gives clear cost isolation, easier budgets and tagging enforcement, and blast-radius and governance boundaries.
What this deck covers
The Design Cost-Optimized Architectures deck follows the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Design Cost-Optimized Architectures syllabus — 3 chapters and 9 topics — so questions land on material that is genuinely examinable rather than trivia around it. That works out to roughly 17.0 cards per chapter.
Answers are written to be recallable, not just readable — averaging about 151 characters, which is long enough to carry the reasoning and short enough to say out loud.
A deck like this earns its keep on the second and third pass. Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then use the cards to find the specific facts that have not stuck.
Design Cost-Optimized Architectures flashcards FAQ
How many Design Cost-Optimized Architectures flashcards are in this AWS Certified Solutions Architect deck?
51 cards. This page previews 24 of them, sampled evenly across the deck so you can judge the difficulty before installing anything.
Are these AWS Certified Solutions Architect flashcards free?
Yes. The preview here is free to read with no signup, and the full 51-card deck is free inside the Examius app.
What do the Design Cost-Optimized Architectures cards cover?
They follow the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Design Cost-Optimized Architectures syllabus — 3 chapters and 9 topics — so the questions track what is actually examinable.
How should I use these flashcards?
Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then drill the deck. Examius schedules each card with spaced repetition, so cards you keep missing come back sooner and ones you know drift further apart.