SAA-C03 Design Resilient Architectures Practice Question
A media startup stores user-uploaded video files in an Amazon S3 bucket in the us-east-1 Region. The compliance team requires that the data remain recoverable if an entire AWS Region becomes unavailable, and that recovery can be performed by pointing applications at a different endpoint. Cost should be minimized while still meeting the requirement. Which solution should a solutions architect recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse durability features that live inside one Region, such as versioning or Glacier transitions, with actual cross-Region resilience.
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 a second Region and configure the application to use the replica bucket endpoint during a regional failure.
Protecting S3 data against a full regional outage requires a copy in a different Region, which Cross-Region Replication provides asynchronously and cost-effectively. Versioning, lifecycle transitions, and Transfer Acceleration all operate within the source Region and therefore cannot deliver recovery when that Region is lost.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Configure an S3 Lifecycle rule to transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 30 days for regional durability.
Why it's wrong here
Lifecycle transitions change the storage class of objects but keep them in the same bucket and Region. Glacier Deep Archive lowers cost and offers high durability, yet it does nothing for regional isolation, and retrieval can take many hours, so it cannot satisfy a cross-Region recovery requirement.
- ✓
Enable S3 Cross-Region Replication to a bucket in a second Region and configure the application to use the replica bucket endpoint during a regional failure.
Why this is correct
Cross-Region Replication copies objects asynchronously to a bucket in another Region, giving a durable copy that survives a full regional outage. Because replication is object-level and pay-as-you-go, cost stays lower than continuously active multi-Region compute, and the application can be repointed to the replica bucket's endpoint during failover.
- ✗
Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration on the bucket so uploads and downloads are faster during a regional event.
Why it's wrong here
Transfer Acceleration uses edge locations to speed up long-distance transfers into a bucket, but the bucket still lives in one Region. It improves throughput and latency, not availability, and offers no protection if the Region hosting the bucket becomes unavailable.
- ✗
Enable S3 Versioning on the existing bucket and rely on version history to restore objects if the Region fails.
Why it's wrong here
Versioning keeps multiple variants of an object in the same bucket, which resides in one Region. If that Region becomes unavailable, every version is inaccessible, so versioning protects against overwrites and deletes but provides no cross-Region recovery capability whatsoever.
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 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
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.