SAA-C03 Design Resilient Architectures Practice Question
A media company stores master video files in an Amazon S3 bucket in the us-east-1 Region. A compliance policy requires that the data remain readable even if the entire us-east-1 Region becomes unavailable, and the recovery point objective is 15 minutes. The team wants the lowest operational overhead and does not want to modify application code. Which solution should the architect implement?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse S3 Lifecycle storage-class transitions with cross-Region replication, when lifecycle actions keep data in the same Region and archival restores are far too slow for a 15-minute RPO.
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
✓
Enable S3 Cross-Region Replication to a bucket in us-west-2 with S3 Replication Time Control set to 15 minutes and enable versioning on both buckets.
Cross-Region Replication with S3 Replication Time Control replicates new and updated objects to a second Region within a defined 15-minute window and supports versioning and metadata. The destination bucket can serve reads during a Regional outage without application changes, giving the required RPO with minimal operational effort.
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 AWS DataSync to copy the bucket to a second Region every hour and store the copy in an S3 bucket with versioning enabled.
Why it's wrong here
AWS DataSync is designed for migrating and transferring data between storage systems, and an hourly schedule cannot meet a 15-minute RPO. DataSync also copies data at a point in time rather than continuously replicating changes, so newly uploaded objects between runs would be lost during a Regional failure.
- ✗
Configure an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive in a second Region and restore them during a disaster.
Why it's wrong here
Lifecycle transitions to Glacier Deep Archive move data to archival storage, and restore operations can take many hours, which violates the 15-minute recovery point objective. Lifecycle policies also do not replicate objects to another Region; they only change storage class within the same bucket's Region, so Regional resilience is not achieved.
- ✓
Enable S3 Cross-Region Replication to a bucket in us-west-2 with S3 Replication Time Control set to 15 minutes and enable versioning on both buckets.
Why this is correct
S3 Cross-Region Replication with Replication Time Control provides a predictable 15-minute replication SLA and replicates objects, versions, and metadata to the destination bucket. The application can be pointed to the destination bucket during a Regional outage, and no code changes are needed because S3 APIs remain the same, meeting both RPO and low-overhead requirements.
- ✗
Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration on the bucket and use an Amazon CloudFront distribution with origin failover to serve the video files.
Why it's wrong here
Transfer Acceleration speeds up uploads over long distances, and CloudFront caches content at edge locations, but neither replicates the bucket to another Region. If us-east-1 is unavailable, the origin is unavailable and cache misses fail, so the data is not durably readable elsewhere and the RPO cannot be guaranteed.
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 and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
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