I have certain applications On-Premises that experience times within a year where infrastructure takes a heavier load impact (e.g., Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.) than other times in the year. You do not want to decommission the on-premises infrastructure. What is the easiest and most cost-effective way in which I can handle this load?

Answer options:

A.By moving all my infrastructure to AWS Cloud and using On-Demand capacity
B.By creating a Private Cloud environment in my On-Premises data center that will provide me with the required elasticity
C.By using Scheduled Reserved Instances to match capacity reservation for the load
D.By provisioning Burst Capacity on the AWS Cloud for the duration of the load

Answer: D
Option A is incorrect. On looking at the scenario, we see that the variable load is only for a specific duration of time. So moving the infrastructure entirely to a Public Cloud will not be the best solution to gain maximum benefit out of the elastic nature of a Public Cloud.
Option B is incorrect. A Private Cloud will be more beneficial where there is a consistent load rather than a variable load. It will be good to have a Private Cloud hosting the applications for economies of cost and agility rather than elasticity, which can be best obtained using a Public Cloud.
Option C is incorrect. Reserved Instances are usually best chosen where there is consistent usage and predictable load for a certain duration of time (1 - 3 Years). Scheduled Reserved Instances have the ability to reserve capacity for a predictable recurring schedule that may be in a day, week, or month. The advantage here is w.r.t the costs that I incur for Reserved Instances that can be managed without paying everything upfront rather than elasticity.
Option D is CORRECT. This is the best way to reduce the costs of purchasing Hardware and getting the benefits of the elasticity and On-Demand pricing provided by a Public Cloud environment. On these specific occasions, I can demand a burst capacity by going to the AWS Public cloud. That will certainly help me maintain the performance of my applications at heavy load. Once the load reduces, I can then terminate the instances that are no longer used to save costs.
References:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/burstable-performance-instances.html
https://youtu.be/OzVpynd_2GM