What should the solutions architect do to accomplish this?
Provide an API hosted on an Amazon EC2 instance. The EC2 instance performs the required computations when the API request is made.
Design a REST API using Amazon API Gateway that accepts the item names. API Gateway passes item names to AWS Lambda for tax computations.
Create an Application Load Balancer that has two Amazon EC2 instances behind it. The EC2 instances will compute the tax on the received item names.
Design a REST API using Amazon API Gateway that connects with an API hosted on an Amazon EC2 instance. API Gateway accepts and passes the item names to the EC2 instance for tax computations.
Explanations:
Hosting the API on a single EC2 instance does not provide scalability or elasticity, especially during peak holiday inquiries, as the instance can become a bottleneck and may not handle increased load efficiently.
Using Amazon API Gateway with AWS Lambda allows for automatic scaling. Lambda can handle many requests concurrently and scale automatically during peak times, making this solution both scalable and elastic.
While using an Application Load Balancer with two EC2 instances can provide some level of scalability, it is not as elastic as using a serverless architecture. EC2 instances require manual scaling and management, which may not efficiently handle sudden spikes in traffic.
This option relies on an EC2 instance for computation, which does not offer the same level of scalability and elasticity as a serverless solution. Although API Gateway can manage traffic, the underlying EC2 instance can still become a bottleneck during high demand periods.
I design that the answer is:
Design a REST API using Amazon API Gateway that accepts the item names. API Gateway passes item names to AWS Lambda for tax computations.