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Getting Started with Databases: Amazon RDS Instance Types

Discover the differences between On-Demand and Reserved Instance pricing for Amazon Relational Database Service. Learn how to optimize costs for your cloud databases.

Table of Contents

Question

You can pay for Amazon RDS using which of the following instance types? (Choose TWO.)

A. Scheduled
B. Reserved
C. Provisioned
D. Spot
E. On-demand

Answer

B. Reserved
E. On-demand

Explanation

Amazon RDS supports both on-demand and reserved instance pricing. Spot and provisioned are instance prices that are available with other AWS services but not with Amazon RDS.

Reserved Instances allow you to reserve database instances for 1 or 3 year terms in exchange for a significant discount compared to On-Demand pricing. By committing to a longer term, you can save up to 69% over equivalent On-Demand capacity. Reserved Instances are recommended for predictable, steady-state database workloads.

On-Demand Instances let you pay for compute capacity by the hour with no long-term commitments. On-Demand pricing is flexible but is the most expensive option. It is best for unpredictable workloads, initial testing, or infrequently run applications.

The other options are not valid Amazon RDS instance types:

A. Scheduled Instances are available for Amazon EC2 but not RDS.
C. Provisioned is not an RDS instance type. However, RDS uses provisioned IOPs to allocate I/O capacity.
D. Spot Instances provide spare EC2 capacity at discounts of up to 90% but are not available for RDS.

In summary, Reserved Instances offer the lowest costs for steady database usage, while On-Demand Instances provide flexibility at a higher price. The right choice depends on your workload patterns and cost optimization goals.

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