AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03)Design Resilient ArchitecturesMedium
A global online gaming company needs to store petabytes of user-generated content (UGC), including video clips, screenshots, and game replays. This content is frequently accessed for the first 30 days, then less frequently for the next 60 days, and rarely accessed afterward, but must be retained for 5 years. The company wants to minimize storage costs while ensuring data availability. Which Amazon S3 storage class is most suitable for this use case, combined with S3 Lifecycle policies?
- AAmazon S3 One Zone-IA
- BAmazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval
- CAmazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering
- DAmazon S3 Standard
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: C. Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering
Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering is designed to optimize storage costs by automatically moving data between access tiers when access patterns change, without performance impact. It's ideal for data with unknown or changing access patterns, perfectly matching the described access frequency changes of UGC.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. S3 One Zone-IA is cost-effective for infrequently accessed data in a single Availability Zone but requires manual tiering and is not resilient to AZ loss.
- B. S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval is for archival data with retrieval times ranging from minutes to hours, not suitable for content frequently accessed for the first 90 days.
- D. S3 Standard is for frequently accessed data and would be too expensive for the entire 5-year period with changing access patterns.
S3 Intelligent-Tiering
An Amazon S3 storage class that automatically moves objects between four access tiers (Frequent, Infrequent, Archive Access, Deep Archive Access) based on changing access patterns, optimizing storage costs without performance impact.
- Automated cost optimization
- No performance impact
- Ideal for unknown or changing access patterns
- Supports archiving to Glacier tiers
Memory trick: Intelligent-Tiering is the 'smart' choice for unpredictable access.