Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?
Set up an SMTP server on Amazon EC2 instances by using an AMI from the AWS Marketplace. Store the email template in an Amazon S3 bucket. Create an AWS Lambda function to retrieve the template from the S3 bucket and to merge the customer data from the application with the template. Use an SDK in the Lambda function to send the email message.
Set up Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) to send email messages. Store the email template in an Amazon S3 bucket. Create an AWS Lambda function to retrieve the template from the S3 bucket and to merge the customer data from the application with the template. Use an SDK in the Lambda function to send the email message.
Set up an SMTP server on Amazon EC2 instances by using an AMI from the AWS Marketplace. Store the email template in Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) with parameters for the customer data. Create an AWS Lambda function to call the SES template and to pass customer data to replace the parameters. Use the AWS Marketplace SMTP server to send the email message.
Set up Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) to send email messages. Store the email template on Amazon SES with parameters for the customer data. Create an AWS Lambda function to call the SendTemplatedEmail API operation and to pass customer data to replace the parameters and the email destination.
Explanations:
Using EC2 instances to host an SMTP server adds operational overhead and complexity. The solution does not minimize operational overhead as required.
Although using SES is a good choice for email delivery, storing the email template in S3 and using Lambda to merge the template with customer data is not as seamless and cost-effective as using SES templates directly.
Setting up an SMTP server on EC2 and calling SES templates for email delivery creates unnecessary complexity. Using an EC2 instance for SMTP defeats the purpose of minimizing operational overhead.
Using SES with Lambda and the SendTemplatedEmail API is the most cost-effective and efficient solution. SES handles the email sending, and Lambda can dynamically merge customer data, minimizing overhead.
I map out that the answer is:
Set up Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) to send email messages. Store the email template on Amazon SES with parameters for the customer data. Create an AWS Lambda function to call the SendTemplatedEmail API operation and to pass customer data to replace the parameters and the email destination.