A global pharmaceutical company is building a data lake on AWS S3 to store clinical trial data. This data is subject to strict regulatory requirements, including GDPR and HIPAA. The company needs to implement a robust data retention policy where data must be retained for a minimum of 15 years, and then automatically moved to the lowest-cost archival storage class, and finally deleted after 25 years. The data is rarely accessed after 5 years. Given these requirements, which S3 lifecycle policy configuration is most cost-effective and compliant?
- ATransition to S3 Intelligent-Tiering after 5 years, then transition to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 15 years, and expire after 25 years.
- BTransition to S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval after 15 years, then expire after 25 years.
- CTransition to S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval after 5 years, then expire after 25 years.
- DTransition to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 5 years, then expire after 25 years.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: D. Transition to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 5 years, then expire after 25 years.
The requirement is to move to the lowest-cost archival storage after 15 years of effective retention (since it's rarely accessed after 5 years, but must be kept for 15+) and then deleted after 25 years. S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest-cost archival storage. Transitioning to it after 5 years and expiring after 25 years meets all criteria: cost-effectiveness for rarely accessed data, minimum 15 years retention (as data is in Deep Archive for 20 years, far exceeding 15), and automatic deletion.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. S3 Intelligent-Tiering is not the lowest cost for strictly archival data, and adding an extra transition to Deep Archive at 15 years is less efficient than directly moving to Deep Archive earlier if access patterns are stable (rarely accessed after 5 years).
- B. Transitioning after 15 years means the data would be in more expensive tiers (like S3 Standard or Infrequent Access) for longer than necessary, not optimizing for cost-effectiveness given it's rarely accessed after 5 years.
- C. Glacier Flexible Retrieval is more expensive than Deep Archive and doesn't fully optimize for the 'lowest-cost archival storage' for rarely accessed data.
S3 Glacier Deep Archive
S3 Glacier Deep Archive is Amazon S3's lowest-cost storage class for archiving data that is rarely, if ever, accessed. It is ideal for long-term retention and regulatory compliance.
- Lowest cost storage in S3
- Retrieval times are typically within 12 hours
- Minimum storage duration charge of 180 days
Memory trick: Deep Archive for lowest cost, long-term, and compliant deletion.