SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures Practice Question
A marketing site stores logs in S3. Logs are queried for 30 days, rarely accessed for one year, and then retained for compliance. What should reduce storage cost? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates might choose Option D, thinking immediate archiving is cheapest, but they overlook the 30-day query requirement and the fact that S3 Glacier Deep Archive has retrieval times of 12+ hours, making it unsuitable for frequent access.
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
✓
S3 lifecycle policy that transitions objects to lower-cost storage classes over time
S3 Lifecycle policies allow you to automatically transition objects from S3 Standard to lower-cost storage classes like S3 Standard-IA (Infrequent Access) after 30 days, then to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after one year, without custom scripts. This matches the access pattern: frequent queries for 30 days, rare access for a year, then long-term retention for compliance. The policy automates cost reduction by moving data to progressively cheaper storage as access frequency decreases.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
S3 lifecycle policy that transitions objects to lower-cost storage classes over time
Why this is correct
Lifecycle rules automate transitions based on age, matching storage cost to access patterns.
- ✗
Keep all logs in S3 Standard indefinitely
Why it's wrong here
S3 Standard is more expensive for rarely accessed archival data.
- ✗
Use EBS snapshots for the logs
Why it's wrong here
EBS snapshots are not the right storage model for application log objects.
- ✗
Move all logs immediately to S3 Glacier Deep Archive
Why it's wrong here
Immediate deep archive can make recent query access slow and expensive.
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
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