DEA-C01 Data Store Management Practice Question
A data engineer stores application logs in an Amazon S3 bucket. Compliance requires that log objects be retained for seven years and that they cannot be deleted or overwritten by any user, including the account root user, during that period. The engineer must configure the bucket to enforce this. Which combination of settings should the engineer apply?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is believing that a bucket policy or governance mode can stop the root user, when only compliance-mode Object Lock removes all override capability.
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
✓
Enable S3 Object Lock in compliance mode with a default retention period of seven years on the bucket.
S3 Object Lock provides write-once-read-many protection at the object version level. Compliance mode is the strictest setting: no principal, including the account root user, can delete or overwrite a locked version before retention expires. Applying a bucket default retention of seven years automatically protects newly uploaded log objects without per-object calls, meeting the compliance requirement.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable S3 Object Lock in governance mode and grant the s3:BypassGovernanceRetention permission only to the root user.
Why it's wrong here
Governance mode allows users with the s3:BypassGovernanceRetention permission to delete or alter retention, which explicitly includes the root user. Because the requirement is that even the root user cannot delete objects, governance mode with a bypass grant fails. Compliance mode is required to remove that override capability.
- ✗
Enable S3 Versioning and attach a bucket policy that denies s3:DeleteObject to all principals except the root user.
Why it's wrong here
Versioning preserves overwritten versions, but a principal with sufficient permissions, including the root user, can still delete object versions and bypass the policy. A bucket policy can be modified or removed by an administrator, so it does not provide the tamper-resistant immutability that compliance mode Object Lock enforces.
- ✓
Enable S3 Object Lock in compliance mode with a default retention period of seven years on the bucket.
Why this is correct
S3 Object Lock in compliance mode prevents any user, including the root user, from overwriting or deleting a protected object version until the retention period expires. Setting a default retention of seven years on the bucket applies the rule automatically to new objects, satisfying the immutability and retention requirements.
- ✗
Configure an S3 Lifecycle rule to transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after one day and expire them after seven years.
Why it's wrong here
Lifecycle rules manage storage class transitions and expiration, but they do not prevent deletion or overwrite before the expiration date. A user with delete permissions could still remove objects immediately. Lifecycle policies also do not block the root user, so they cannot satisfy the immutability requirement.
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
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
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