DEA-C01 Data Security and Governance Practice Question

A data engineer is designing a data lake on Amazon S3. The compliance team requires that objects be automatically deleted after 7 years. Additionally, objects must be transitioned to Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval after 30 days to reduce costs. Which S3 lifecycle policy configuration meets these requirements?

⚠ Common exam trap

The trap is miscalculating 7 years in days (2555) or confusing Glacier Instant Retrieval with Glacier Deep Archive, leading to wrong storage class or expiration values.

Answer choices

Why each option matters

Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.

Correct answer & explanation

✓

Transition to Glacier Instant Retrieval after 30 days, then expire after 2555 days.

The requirement is to transition objects to Glacier Instant Retrieval after 30 days and delete them after 7 years. 7 years equals 2555 days (7 × 365). Option B correctly specifies transition after 30 days and expiration after 2555 days. This meets both the cost optimization and compliance retention requirements.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

✗
Transition to Glacier Instant Retrieval after 30 days, then expire after 90 days.
Why it's wrong here
The 90-day expiration deletes objects roughly six years and nine months before the compliance deadline, and the transition target is correct but the expiry is not. Glacier Instant Retrieval after 30 days suits archival with millisecond retrieval; the seven-year retention requirement is what this policy fails to satisfy.
✓
Transition to Glacier Instant Retrieval after 30 days, then expire after 2555 days.
Why this is correct
The lifecycle rule transitions objects to Glacier Instant Retrieval at day 30, meeting the cost requirement, and expires them at day 2555, which equals seven years. Both the transition and retention constraints in the stem are satisfied by this single rule.
✗
Transition to Glacier Deep Archive after 30 days, then expire after 7 years.
Why it's wrong here
Glacier Deep Archive retrieval takes hours and is designed for long-term retention, not the instant retrieval the stem specifies. The seven-year expiry is correct, but the storage class is not. Deep Archive would be right if retrieval within hours were acceptable and cost minimisation were paramount.
✗
Transition to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days, then expire after 7 years.
Why it's wrong here
S3 Standard-IA is a storage class, not Glacier Instant Retrieval, so the 30-day transition target is wrong. Glacier Instant Retrieval delivers millisecond retrieval; Standard-IA offers no archival tiering. This policy would be correct if the requirement were infrequent-access storage rather than archival with instant retrieval.

Quick reference

AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison

Storage Class	Min Duration	Retrieval	Use Case
S3 Standard	None	Immediate	Frequently accessed data
S3 Standard-IA	30 days	Immediate	Infrequent access, rapid retrieval
S3 One Zone-IA	30 days	Immediate	Non-critical infrequent data
S3 Intelligent-Tiering	None	Immediate–hours	Unknown or changing access patterns
S3 Glacier Instant	90 days	Milliseconds	Archive with instant retrieval
S3 Glacier Flexible	90 days	Minutes–hours	Archive, flexible retrieval
S3 Glacier Deep Archive	180 days	Hours	Long-term compliance archive

Go deeper

DEA-C01 Data Security and Governance Practice Question

Why each option matters

Option-by-option breakdown

AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison

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