AWS Certified Advanced Networking Specialty Practice Exam

What is the recommended action to take when Amazon EC2 instance network bandwidth becomes saturated due to on-premises traffic?

1. Utilize network ACLs to filter traffic

2. Implement AWS Direct Connect and migrate to an AWS Direct Connect gateway

3. Increase instance type and size for better bandwidth

4. Implement a load balancer to distribute traffic

The correct answer is: Implement AWS Direct Connect and migrate to an AWS Direct Connect gateway

Implementing AWS Direct Connect and migrating to an AWS Direct Connect gateway is recommended when the network bandwidth of an Amazon EC2 instance becomes saturated due to on-premises traffic. AWS Direct Connect provides a dedicated network connection from your premises to AWS, resulting in more reliable and consistent network performance as compared to internet-based connections. This can significantly reduce latency and improve bandwidth availability for data transfer between your on-premises infrastructure and AWS. By migrating to an AWS Direct Connect gateway, you can efficiently manage multiple virtual private clouds (VPCs) across different AWS Regions, allowing you to streamline your network architecture further and optimize data transfer. This dedicated connection often results in lower data transfer costs and increases overall throughput, making it an optimal choice for handling high volumes of incoming traffic from your on-premises environment. In contrast, methods like utilizing network ACLs or increasing instance type and size may not address the root issue of bandwidth saturation. While a load balancer distributes incoming traffic effectively, it does not inherently solve the underlying problem of limited bandwidth resulting from on-premises traffic. Thus, establishing a dedicated and optimized connection via AWS Direct Connect is the most effective strategy for alleviating network bandwidth constraints in this scenario.