DEA-C01 Data Store Management Practice Question
A data engineering team is designing a data lake on Amazon S3 with a folder structure that separates raw, transformed, and curated data. The team needs to implement lifecycle policies to minimize storage costs while ensuring that data in the 'raw' zone is retained for 90 days before being moved to Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive. Additionally, data in the 'curated' zone should be deleted after 365 days. What is the MOST cost-effective way to achieve these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates might think separate lifecycle policies are required for different prefixes, but AWS allows multiple rules within a single policy, making it more cost-effective and easier to manage than creating separate policies.
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
✓
Create a single lifecycle policy with two rules: one to transition raw zone objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days, and another to delete curated zone objects after 365 days.
A single S3 lifecycle policy can contain multiple rules, each applying to different prefixes. This allows you to transition raw zone objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days and delete curated zone objects after 365 days, minimizing storage costs without needing separate policies. S3 lifecycle policies are evaluated per object based on creation date, and using one policy reduces management overhead.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Configure S3 Intelligent-Tiering on both prefixes with automatic archiving to Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days in raw and deletion after 365 days in curated.
Why it's wrong here
Intelligent-Tiering may not enforce exact days and can incur monitoring costs.
- ✗
Create separate lifecycle policies for each prefix: one to transition raw to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days, another to delete curated after 365 days.
Why it's wrong here
Separate policies are unnecessary; a single policy can handle both.
- ✗
Create a lifecycle policy that transitions raw zone data to S3 Standard-IA after 90 days and deletes curated zone data after 365 days.
Why it's wrong here
Standard-IA is not the cheapest for deep archival; Glacier Deep Archive is cheaper.
- ✓
Create a single lifecycle policy with two rules: one to transition raw zone objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days, and another to delete curated zone objects after 365 days.
Why this is correct
This meets cost and retention requirements efficiently.
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 |
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DEA-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DEA-C01 exam.