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Objective 4.2

SAA-C03

Design cost-optimized compute solutions.

Objective 4.2 sits in Design Cost-Optimized Architectures, which carries 20% of the Solutions Architect Associate exam. The questions below are original, written from the official objective title above, and each explanation cites the Amazon Web Services (AWS) page it rests on.

Objective title verbatim from the official objectives. Amazon Web Services (AWS) exam page ↗

A worked example

Shown solved, with the whole explanation open: this is what every question here carries.

4-2Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

A three year commitment covers a workload the team expects to move onto a different instance family within the first year. Which Reserved Instance choice survives that move?

Zonal Standard, held for the capacityZonal scope reserves capacity in one Availability Zone. It constrains the reservation further rather than making it portable.
Standard, then sold on for the unused termSelling recovers part of the value but leaves a gap, a marketplace transaction to complete, and no cover for the new family.
Standard, modified onto the new familyModification changes some attributes but cannot move a Standard reservation to a different instance family.
Convertible, exchanged during the termCorrect · your answerCorrect. Exchange covers a change of instance family mid-term.

Correct.

Checked against docs.aws.amazon.com, August 2026

Concept

A long commitment and a changing workload pull against each other, and the pricing model answers that with a discount ladder. Giving up some of the discount buys the right to change the attributes the commitment was made against.

Why D

A Convertible Reserved Instance can be exchanged during its term for another Convertible with new attributes, including a different instance family. The discount is smaller than Standard, which is what pays for that flexibility.

Source

Exchange Reserved Instances Can't be exchanged. Can be exchanged during the term for another Convertible Reserved Instance with new attributes, including instance family, instance type, platform, scope, or tenancy.

AWS docs: Types of Reserved Instances (offering classes), checked August 2026
#reserved-instances#convertible#cost-optimization

Now you: objective 4.2 questions

No account needed. The explanation opens when you answer.

Sample question 1 of 3

4-2Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

A team commits to a three year Savings Plan, and six months later the workload doubles. They ask to raise the hourly commitment on the existing plan. What can they do?

Sample question 2 of 3

4-2Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

A product launch needs guaranteed capacity in one Availability Zone next quarter, and finance also wants a discount on the rate. What delivers both?

Sample question 3 of 3

4-2Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

A team sets a low maximum price on its Spot requests hoping to cap cost, and interruptions rise sharply afterwards. What does AWS say about that setting?

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Read the sources

These are the official pages the questions above cite. Reading them is studying the objective from the primary source, which is what the explanations point you toward anyway.

More objectives in Design Cost-Optimized Architectures