ANS-C01 Network Design Practice Question
A company is running a latency-sensitive application in a VPC with a public subnet and a private subnet. The application in the private subnet needs to access an Amazon S3 bucket in the same region. The company wants to minimize latency and avoid using a NAT gateway. Which solution meets these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently assume S3 Transfer Acceleration is always faster, but it is designed for cross-region or long-distance transfers and actually adds latency for same-region traffic due to additional routing and edge location processing.
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 VPC Gateway Endpoint for Amazon S3 and update the route table for the private subnet
A VPC Gateway Endpoint for Amazon S3 allows instances in a private subnet to access S3 without traversing the internet or requiring a NAT gateway. This minimizes latency by routing traffic over the AWS internal network, and it avoids the cost and complexity of NAT devices. The route table for the private subnet must be updated with a route pointing to the gateway endpoint for the S3 prefix list.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use S3 Transfer Acceleration and access the bucket via the public endpoint
Why it's wrong here
Transfer Acceleration is designed for long distances and adds no benefit for same-region access; it also requires public internet access.
- ✓
Create a VPC Gateway Endpoint for Amazon S3 and update the route table for the private subnet
Why this is correct
A Gateway Endpoint provides private connectivity to S3 without leaving the AWS network, minimizing latency and avoiding NAT gateway costs.
- ✗
Attach an Internet Gateway to the VPC and route the private subnet traffic through a NAT instance
Why it's wrong here
An Internet Gateway alone does not provide private subnet access; a NAT instance would still be needed and adds latency.
- ✗
Set up a NAT gateway in the public subnet and route traffic to the S3 bucket through it
Why it's wrong here
A NAT gateway adds latency and cost, and is not the lowest-latency path to S3.
Visual reference
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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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This ANS-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 ANS-C01 exam.