SOA-C02: Which storage option provide the HIGHEST performance for temporary cache on EC2 instance

Table of Contents

Question
Answer
Explanation
Reference

Question

A company runs a workload on an Amazon EC2 instance. The workload needs a temporary cache that contains data that changes frequently. The workload does not need to retain the cache across instance restarts. Which storage option will provide the HIGHEST performance for the cache?

A. General Purpose SSD (gp3) Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume
B. Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2) Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume
C. Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume
D. EC2 instance store

Answer

D. EC2 instance store

Explanation

The correct answer is D. EC2 instance store.

An EC2 instance store is a type of storage that provides temporary block-level storage for your EC2 instance. An instance store is physically attached to the host computer that runs your instance. An instance store offers high performance, low latency, and high IOPS for your applications that need temporary storage.

An EC2 instance store can provide the highest performance for the cache because:

It can deliver up to 3.6 million IOPS and 16 GB/s of throughput per instance, depending on the instance type and size. This means that your workload can access and process the cache data faster and more efficiently.
It does not incur any additional cost or network overhead. Unlike Amazon EBS volumes, which are network-attached storage devices that charge you based on the volume size, performance, and data transfer, an instance store is included in the price of the EC2 instance and does not require any network communication to access the data.
It does not need to retain the cache data across instance restarts. An instance store is ephemeral, which means that the data on the instance store persists only as long as the instance is running. If you stop, terminate, or reboot your instance, the data on the instance store is lost. However, this is not a problem for your workload, which needs a temporary cache that contains data that changes frequently.

The other options are incorrect because:

Option A is incorrect because a General Purpose SSD (gp3) Amazon EBS volume would not provide as high performance as an EC2 instance store for the cache. A gp3 volume is a type of Amazon EBS volume that provides a balance of price and performance for a wide range of workloads. A gp3 volume can deliver up to 16,000 IOPS and 1,000 MB/s of throughput per volume, depending on the volume size and configuration. However, this is lower than what an EC2 instance store can offer. Moreover, a gp3 volume would incur additional cost and network latency for your workload.
Option B is incorrect because a Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2) Amazon EBS volume would not provide as high performance as an EC2 instance store for the cache. An io2 volume is a type of Amazon EBS volume that provides high performance and durability for mission-critical and I/O-intensive workloads. An io2 volume can deliver up to 64,000 IOPS and 1,000 MB/s of throughput per volume, depending on the volume size and configuration. However, this is still lower than what an EC2 instance store can offer. Furthermore, an io2 volume would incur additional cost and network latency for your workload.
Option C is incorrect because a Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) Amazon EBS volume would provide the lowest performance among all options for the cache. An st1 volume is a type of Amazon EBS volume that provides low-cost magnetic storage for throughput-intensive workloads that require large amounts of sequential data access. An st1 volume can deliver up to 500 IOPS and 500 MB/s of throughput per volume, depending on the volume size and configuration. However, this is much lower than what an EC2 instance store can offer. Additionally, an st1 volume would incur additional cost and network latency for your workload.

Therefore, the best storage option to provide the highest performance for the cache that needs temporary storage and does not need to retain data across instance restarts is an EC2 instance store.

Reference

Amazon AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate certification exam practice question and answer (Q&A) dump with detail explanation and reference available free, helpful to pass the Amazon AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate exam and earn Amazon AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate certification.