AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03)Design Resilient ArchitecturesHard
A global gaming company needs to store petabytes of user-generated content, including video clips and screenshots. This data is accessed frequently for the first 30 days, then less frequently for the next 60 days, and rarely after 90 days, but must be retained for 10 years. The company wants to minimize storage costs while maintaining high availability for frequently accessed data. Which S3 storage classes and lifecycle policy configuration should be used?
- ATransition to S3 One Zone-IA after 30 days, then to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days.
- BTransition to S3 Intelligent-Tiering after 30 days, then to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days.
- CTransition to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days, then to S3 Glacier after 90 days.
- DTransition to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days, then to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: D. Transition to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days, then to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days.
Starting with S3 Standard for frequent access, transitioning to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days (less frequent access, lower cost) is appropriate. After 90 days, when data is rarely accessed but needs 10-year retention, S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the most cost-effective solution for long-term archival with retrieval times up to 12 hours.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. S3 One Zone-IA is not highly available as it stores data in a single AZ, which is not suitable for 'maintaining high availability for frequently accessed data' and general durability expectations.
- B. Intelligent-Tiering is good, but Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days is suitable for 10-year retention. This is a possible option, but 'Standard-IA' is more direct for 'less frequently' accessed.
- C. S3 Glacier is an option, but 'Glacier Deep Archive' is more cost-effective for 10-year retention of 'rarely accessed' data.
S3 Lifecycle for Cost Optimization
Amazon S3 Lifecycle policies automate the transition of objects between different S3 storage classes or their expiration. This helps optimize storage costs by moving data to less expensive classes as its access patterns change.
- S3 Standard: high availability, frequent access.
- S3 Standard-IA: high availability, infrequent access, lower cost.
- S3 Glacier: archival, configurable retrieval times, very low cost.
- S3 Glacier Deep Archive: lowest cost archival, longest retrieval times (up to 12 hours).
- S3 Intelligent-Tiering: automatically moves objects between two access tiers based on changing access patterns.
Memory trick: S3 Tiers: Standard, Infrequent, Glacier, Deep.