DVA-C02 Security Practice Question
A company has an S3 bucket with versioning enabled. A developer accidentally deleted an object. What must be done to recover it?
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
✓
Delete the delete marker
When versioning is enabled on an S3 bucket, a delete operation does not actually remove the object; instead, it inserts a delete marker that becomes the current version, hiding the previous versions. To recover the object, you must delete that delete marker, which promotes the prior object version back to being the current version and makes it accessible again. Option C is therefore correct. Option A is wrong because no copy exists elsewhere, option B is wrong because Glacier Deep Archive is a storage class for archival data and is not involved in this recovery, and option D is wrong because versioning is already enabled and enabling it again would not restore the object.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Copy the object from another bucket
Why it's wrong here
There is no assumption or guarantee that an identical copy of the object exists in a separate bucket; relying on a manual cross-bucket copy is not how S3 versioning recovers deleted objects, and no such backup bucket is described in the scenario at all.
- ✗
Restore the object from Glacier Deep Archive
Why it's wrong here
Restoring from Glacier Deep Archive applies to objects that were transitioned to that storage class and later need to be pulled out of archival cold storage before they can be read again; a deleted object in a versioned bucket was never archived, it simply received a delete marker as its current version.
- ✓
Delete the delete marker
Why this is correct
When versioning is enabled, deleting an object does not erase its data but instead inserts a delete marker as the new current version; removing that specific delete marker version makes the previous object version become current again, effectively undeleting the object without any data loss.
- ✗
Enable versioning on the bucket
Why it's wrong here
The scenario explicitly states versioning is already enabled on the bucket, so attempting to enable it again is a no-op that does nothing to restore the deleted object; the recovery action must operate on the existing delete marker, not on the versioning configuration itself.
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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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DVA-C02 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 DVA-C02 exam.