How can this be accomplished?
Create a scheduled Amazon CloudWatch Events rule to execute an AWS Systems Manager automation document that checks if any EC2 instances are scheduled for retirement once a week. If the instance is scheduled for retirement, the automation document will hibernate the instance.
Enable EC2 Auto Recovery on all of the instances. Create an AWS Config rule to limit the recovery to occur during a maintenance window only.
Reboot all EC2 instances during an approved maintenance window that is outside of standard business hours. Set up Amazon CloudWatch alarms to send a notification in case any instance is failing EC2 instance status checks.
Set up an AWS Health Amazon CloudWatch Events rule to execute AWS Systems Manager automation documents that stop and start the EC2 instance when a retirement scheduled event occurs.
Explanations:
This option suggests creating a scheduled CloudWatch Events rule that checks for EC2 instance retirement events weekly. However, EC2 instance retirement events are not predictable and occur immediately when AWS detects a failure. A weekly check would not capture urgent retirement events.
Enabling EC2 Auto Recovery is intended for automatically recovering instances from certain failures, but it does not directly handle scheduled retirement events. Additionally, AWS Config rules do not control Auto Recovery behavior based on maintenance windows.
Rebooting all EC2 instances during a maintenance window is a manual action and does not specifically target instances with scheduled retirements. This option fails to automate the process based on real-time retirement events and relies on an external schedule.
Setting up an AWS Health CloudWatch Events rule to execute Systems Manager automation documents allows for immediate response to EC2 instance retirement events. This option effectively automates stopping and starting instances as retirement events are detected, ensuring minimal downtime and manual intervention.
I assess that the answer is:
Set up an AWS Health Amazon CloudWatch Events rule to execute AWS Systems Manager automation documents that stop and start the EC2 instance when a retirement scheduled event occurs.