A company must run a legacy Windows application whose license is bound to specific physical server hardware. Which EC2 purchasing option allows them to use their own server-bound licenses legally?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C
Dedicated Hosts hand one customer an entire physical server, so per-socket, per-core, or per-VM license terms attached to that hardware can be honored. Visibility into the physical server's sockets and cores — the quantity licenses actually count — is unique to this option, making it the only choice that satisfies hardware-tied license compliance.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Spot capacity is interruptible and sits within shared physical infrastructure, neither of which establishes a fixed licensed machine for hardware-bound terms.
- B. On-Demand instances run wherever capacity exists in shared fleets, so there is no identifiable dedicated physical server for the license to bind to.
- D. Standard Reserved Instances discount the same shared infrastructure — a tenancy discount changes billing, not the physical isolation a hardware-locked license requires.