A company stores application logs in an S3 bucket. They retain logs for 180 days. Compliance requires that the logs be immutable once written, but the business only reviews logs about once per month. Currently, the team stores everything in S3 Standard, and their monthly S3 bill is too high. They want to reduce storage cost without changing the requirement to keep logs for 180 days.
Which lifecycle approach best meets the goal?
Answer choices
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
Use a lifecycle policy to transition objects older than 30 days to S3 Standard-IA, and keep them there until day 180.
Logs accessed about monthly match Standard-IA economics and still provide fast retrieval.
Use a lifecycle policy to transition objects older than 30 days to S3 Glacier Deep Archive and delete after 30 days.
Deep Archive is cheaper, but deletion after 30 days violates the 180-day retention requirement.
Use a lifecycle policy to transition objects older than 30 days to S3 Intelligent-Tiering with no minimum storage duration.
Intelligent-Tiering can help, but removing a minimum duration is not necessary and adds complexity versus a clear monthly-access pattern.
Disable lifecycle management and instead lower costs by deleting objects immediately after they are written.
Deleting immediately reduces cost but directly breaks the required 180-day retention and immutability needs.
Common exam trap
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
Related practice questions
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
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Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
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FAQ
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
The correct answer is: Use a lifecycle policy to transition objects older than 30 days to S3 Standard-IA, and keep them there until day 180. — Because the logs are retained for 180 days and are accessed roughly monthly, S3 Standard-IA is a strong fit for the storage-cost reduction while still offering relatively quick retrieval. A lifecycle policy that transitions objects after 30 days to Standard-IA and then keeps them there through day 180 reduces cost compared to keeping everything in Standard. It also satisfies the retention requirement because the policy does not delete or shorten the retention period. Glacier classes and early deletion would violate the compliance requirement. Why others are wrong: Deep Archive plus deletion after 30 days violates retention. Intelligent-Tiering can be useful for unknown or varying access patterns, but here the access pattern is already well characterized; Standard-IA is simpler and typically more cost-effective for predictable infrequent access. Deleting immediately obviously breaks the 180-day immutability/retention requirement, which is explicitly stated.
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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