Pass SAA-C03 Exam Guide

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

Amazon FSx for Lustre is a high-performance file system optimized for fast processing of workloads such as machine learning, high-performance computing (HPC), and video processing. It integrates natively with Amazon S3, allowing you to:

Access S3 Data: FSx for Lustre can be linked to an S3 bucket, presenting S3 objects as files in the file system.

High Performance: It provides sub-millisecond latencies, high throughput, and millions of IOPS, which are ideal for ML workloads.Amazon Web Services, Inc.

Minimal Operational Overhead: Being a fully managed service, it reduces the complexity of setting up and managing high-performance file systems.

Amazon S3 is the most cost-effective option for archiving data. Using AWS DMS to migrate to S3 in Apache Parquet format provides an optimized columnar format for analytics. By storing in S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, costs are minimized while maintaining compliance with retention. When queries are required, Athena can run SQL queries directly on archived data in S3 without provisioning infrastructure. Options A and B rely on maintaining RDS or EC2 instances, which increases cost and operational overhead. Option C requires full restores to EC2 before running queries, which is slow and inefficient. Therefore, D provides the lowest operational overhead and direct query capability with Athena.

Why Option D is Correct:

IAM Roles with Instance Profiles: Allow applications to access AWS services securely without hardcoding long-term access keys.

Short-Term Credentials: IAM roles issue short-term credentials dynamically managed by AWS.

Why Other Options Are Not Ideal:

Option A and B: Embedding or retrieving long-term access keys introduces security risks and operational overhead.

Option C: Combining IAM roles with Parameter Store adds unnecessary complexity.

AWS References:

IAM Roles and Instance Profiles:AWS Documentation - IAM Roles

Amazon RDSBlue/Green Deploymentsis the ideal solution for upgrading the database version with minimal operational overhead and no data loss. Blue/Green Deployments allows you to create a separate, fully managed "green" environment with the upgraded database version. You can test the new version in the green environment while the "blue" environment continuesserving production traffic. Once testing is complete, you can seamlessly switch traffic to the green environment without downtime.

This solution provides:

Fast, non-disruptive upgrade: Traffic is only switched to the new environment after testing, ensuring zero data loss.

Minimal operational overhead: AWS handles the infrastructure management, reducing manual intervention.

Option A (Manual snapshot): This requires manual intervention and involves more operational overhead.

Option B (Native backup/restore): This approach is more labor-intensive and slower than Blue/Green Deployments.

Option C (DMS): AWS DMS adds unnecessary complexity for a simple version upgrade when Blue/Green Deployments can handle the task more efficiently.

AWS References:

Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments