A website serves versioned JavaScript and CSS files through CloudFront, but origin fetches are still high and the CloudFront bill increased. Developers confirm that URLs include a version in the filename (for example, app.1.4.2.js). What CloudFront behavior/configuration is most likely to reduce origin fetches and associated costs?

Disable compression to reduce CPU time spent at the edge and therefore reduce total cost.

Disabling compression typically increases the amount of data transferred, which can increase latency and overall origin/egress costs rather than reducing CloudFront costs.

Lower the cache policy TTLs so clients always get the newest assets quickly.

Shorter TTLs cause content to expire sooner, increasing cache misses and origin fetches, which usually increases cost and can reduce performance.

Remove version identifiers from filenames so CloudFront caches fewer unique objects.

If files are not versioned, updates require cache invalidations or very short TTLs. That increases revalidation/origin activity and risks users receiving stale assets, which can increase overall origin fetches and operational cost.

What does this SAA-C03 question test?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Set long cache headers (for example, Cache-Control: max-age and immutable) on those versioned assets so CloudFront caches them longer. — With versioned asset filenames, each specific URL should be treated as immutable. The most effective way to reduce origin fetches is to configure caching so CloudFront keeps those objects in its edge cache for a long time. Practically, this means setting appropriate Cache-Control headers (for example, a large max-age, and using immutable when suitable) via the origin or CloudFront response headers policy, and ensuring CloudFront’s cache policy uses those values. Higher cache hit ratios reduce the number of origin requests, lowering both origin load and the resulting CloudFront request/cost impact. Disabling compression can increase total transferred data and does not address cache hit ratio or origin request frequency. Lowering TTLs increases cache misses and origin fetches. Removing version identifiers breaks the immutability assumption and forces either invalidations or shorter caching, which generally increases origin activity.

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.