SAA-C03 Practice Question: CloudFront is a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
A global video platform serves mostly static images and JavaScript files from an S3 origin. Users in distant countries report slow load times. What should improve performance most?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates might confuse 'scaling' (Auto Scaling, larger buckets) with 'latency reduction' (CDN), or mistakenly think database read replicas can serve static web assets, when in fact they are only for relational database read offloading.
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
✓
Amazon CloudFront distribution with the S3 bucket as origin
Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) that caches static content (images, JavaScript) at edge locations worldwide. By distributing content closer to users, it reduces latency and improves load times significantly compared to serving directly from a single S3 origin. This is the most effective solution for a global user base accessing static assets.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
A larger S3 bucket
Why it's wrong here
Bucket size does not affect latency; S3 capacity is effectively unlimited and request routing is unchanged. It is tempting because storage volume feels like a performance lever, and a larger bucket would be the answer if the problem were capacity limits or object-count throttling rather than geographic distance.
- ✓
Amazon CloudFront distribution with the S3 bucket as origin
Why this is correct
CloudFront caches the static images and JavaScript at edge locations worldwide, so distant users fetch objects from nearby points of presence rather than the S3 origin, cutting latency. This directly addresses the slow load times reported in distant countries.
- ✗
RDS read replicas
Why it's wrong here
RDS read replicas scale database read traffic; they cannot serve static images or JavaScript from S3. It is tempting because read replicas improve read performance, but the workload here is object delivery, so CloudFront edge locations or S3 Transfer Acceleration reduce latency for distant users.
- ✗
An EC2 Auto Scaling group in one Region
Why it's wrong here
An Auto Scaling group in one Region still serves distant users from that single location, leaving the same latency. It is tempting because Auto Scaling handles demand spikes, but the bottleneck is geographic distance, which CloudFront edge caching or S3 Transfer Acceleration addresses instead.
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 SAA-C03 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 SAA-C03 exam.