1.4 - Cloud migration and cost-saving strategies
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner objective 1.4 covers basic migration and cost-saving strategies. Rehost, or lift and shift, moves an application to AWS with minimal changes, the fastest way to migrate. A core cost principle is to scale on demand so you pay only for what you use, rather than guessing peak load and paying for idle capacity all year. Simple savings habits matter too: if test instances only run during business hours, stop the instances when they are not in use to avoid paying for idle time. When a company must run AWS compute and storage physically inside its own on-premises data center, AWS Outposts extends AWS there. Expect scenario questions that describe moving an app with minimal change, over-provisioning, idle resources or an on-premises AWS requirement, and ask which migration or cost-saving strategy fits.
Move an app with minimal change = rehost (lift and shift). Pay only for what you use, scale on demand. Idle test instances = stop them when unused. AWS hardware in your own data center = AWS Outposts.
Practice questions
1. Which migration strategy means moving an application to AWS with minimal changes (lift-and-shift)?
- Refactor
- Repurchase
- Rehost (correct answer)
- Retire
Rehost = lift-and-shift: move the app as-is with minimal change. Replatform tweaks a bit, refactor rearchitects, repurchase switches to SaaS, retire decommissions, retain keeps on-prem.
2. A startup provisioned EC2 instances by guessing peak load and now pays for capacity that sits idle most of the day. Which cloud principle should guide their fix?
- Sign a longer hardware lease to lower the unit price
- Keep peak capacity always on for safety
- Scale on demand so you pay only for what you use (correct answer)
- Move everything to a single larger instance
The point of the cloud is to stop guessing capacity: provision on demand and pay per use, so idle capacity (and its cost) disappears. Locking in peak capacity keeps the waste.
3. A team keeps three test EC2 instances running 24/7 but only uses them during business hours. What is the simplest way to reduce their cost?
- Buy 3-year Reserved Instances for all three test instances
- Resize them to the largest type
- Enable termination protection
- Stop the instances when they are not in use (correct answer)
Stopping an EC2 instance halts its compute (On-Demand) charges; you only keep paying for attached EBS storage. Stopping idle non-production instances is a quick, effective saving.
4. A company wants to lower the total cost of running its own database servers, including patching, backups and hardware refresh. Which cloud approach best reduces this operational overhead?
- Use a managed service so AWS handles undifferentiated heavy lifting (correct answer)
- Self-manage the databases entirely yourself on much larger EC2 instances
- Keep the database on premises with more staff
- Buy Dedicated Hosts to isolate the database
Managed services (like Amazon RDS) offload patching, backups and hardware management to AWS, lowering operational cost and freeing staff. Running your own DB on EC2 keeps that heavy lifting with you.
5. A company must run AWS compute and storage physically inside its own on-premises data center to meet low-latency and data-residency needs, while using the same AWS APIs. Which offering fits best?
- AWS Local Zones
- AWS Outposts (correct answer)
- AWS Wavelength
- Amazon CloudFront
AWS Outposts ships AWS-managed racks (compute + storage) into your own data center, giving a consistent hybrid experience with the same APIs. Local Zones and Wavelength live in AWS/carrier facilities, not your building.
6. Which AWS infrastructure places compute and storage closer to a large metro population to give single-digit millisecond latency to local users, while remaining an extension of a parent Region?
- AWS Outposts
- Edge locations for CloudFront
- AWS Local Zones (correct answer)
- AWS Ground Station
Local Zones extend a Region to a specific metropolitan area so latency-sensitive workloads (gaming, live media, real-time apps) run close to users. CloudFront edge locations only cache/deliver content; Ground Station is for satellites.