A studio keeps 4 PB of completed video projects in Amazon S3. Editors work on active projects for about 60 days, auditors occasionally review the same objects for several months, and legal policy requires retention for 7 years. Retrieval of very old files can take hours. Which three actions should the architect recommend? Select three.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
Best answer
Transition objects to S3 Standard-IA after 60 days.
Standard-IA is a good fit after the active editing window because the objects are accessed less often but still need relatively quick retrieval.
Best answer
Transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after the review period ends.
Deep Archive minimizes long-term storage spend when the oldest footage can tolerate hour-scale retrieval, exactly as stated in the scenario.
Best answer
Expire objects after 7 years.
Lifecycle expiration at the end of the legal retention window stops unnecessary storage charges after the policy requirement is satisfied.
Distractor review
Keep the files in S3 Standard indefinitely so retrieval is always fast.
S3 Standard provides fast access, but it is unnecessarily expensive for multi-year retention of footage that is rarely needed.
Distractor review
Copy the files to a single EBS volume for lower per-GB cost.
EBS is block storage and is not suitable for massive archival libraries with lifecycle and retention requirements like these.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
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
How to think about this question
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.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
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More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A team needs to distribute TCP traffic (not HTTP) across multiple services. The services must see the original client source IP for auditing. Which AWS load balancer is the best fit?
Question 2
A team wants to run containerized services with AWS-managed orchestration and autoscaling. They do NOT require Kubernetes compatibility. Which AWS service choice is most appropriate to meet these goals?
Question 3
A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a IoT ingestion API. The objects must never be publicly accessible, even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy. What should the architect configure? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.
Question 4
A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a claims portal. The objects must never be publicly accessible, even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy. What should the architect configure?
Question 5
A team wants to delegate IAM management to developers, but must ensure developers can never grant themselves permissions beyond a specific limit. Which AWS mechanism best matches this requirement?
Question 6
A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a healthcare document service. The objects must never be publicly accessible, even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy. What should the architect configure?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SAA-C03 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Transition objects to S3 Standard-IA after 60 days. — The design should start with a cheaper infrequent-access class after the active editing period, then transition the old footage to Glacier Deep Archive once the review period is over. Because the files must only be retained for seven years, lifecycle expiration should remove them at the end of that period. This sequence aligns storage cost with real access patterns and legal retention needs. Why others are wrong: Keeping everything in S3 Standard sacrifices cost efficiency without any functional benefit. EBS volumes are the wrong storage model for this archival object workload and would be operationally inefficient at this scale.
What should I do if I get this SAA-C03 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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