Question

2. Your order-processing application processes orders extracted from a queue with two Reserved Instances processing 10 orders/minute. If an order fails during processing, then it is returned to the queue without penalty. Due to a weekend sale, the queues have several hundred orders backed up. While the backup is not catastrophic, you would like to drain it so that customers get their confirmation emails faster. What is a cost-effective way to drain the queue for orders?

A. Create more queues.
B. Deploy additional Spot Instances to assist in processing the orders.
C. Deploy additional Reserved Instances to assist in processing the orders.
D. Deploy additional On-Demand Instances to assist in processing the orders.

Answer 1

To cost-effectively drain the queue for orders, the best option would be to deploy additional Spot Instances to assist in processing the orders. Spot Instances are spare computing capacity offered by AWS at a lower price compared to Reserved or On-Demand Instances, making them cost-effective and ideal for quickly processing orders during a backlog.

Step-by-step explanation:

To cost-effectively drain the queue for orders, the best option would be to deploy additional Spot Instances to assist in processing the orders. Spot Instances are spare computing capacity offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) at a lower price compared to Reserved or On-Demand Instances. By deploying more Spot Instances, you can increase the processing power and speed up the order processing without significantly increasing the cost.

Unlike Reserved Instances, which are suited for long-term usage and providing cost savings over time, Spot Instances can be used for short-term or on-demand tasks, making them ideal for draining the queue quickly during a spike in orders. Spot Instances are also cost-effective since they are generally available at a much lower price than On-Demand Instances.

By deploying additional Spot Instances, you can distribute the workload across multiple instances, processing orders faster and reducing the backup in the queue, allowing customers to receive their confirmation emails more quickly.