Your global users access static images stored in S3. Origin bandwidth costs are higher than expected because CloudFront is not caching effectively. What change most directly reduces origin fetches (and typically lowers data transfer costs) without changing application logic?

Disable CloudFront caching so every request goes back to S3 for the latest image

Disabling caching forces CloudFront to treat every request as a miss and fetch from the origin each time. This increases origin fetch volume and typically increases both latency and origin bandwidth cost.

Route users directly to the S3 website endpoint to bypass CloudFront

Bypassing CloudFront removes edge caching and shifts traffic directly to S3. That typically increases latency and increases the amount of data transferred to the origin rather than reducing origin fetches.

Turn on a NAT Gateway for the CloudFront origin to reduce bandwidth charges

NAT Gateways affect outbound traffic from instances in private subnets. CloudFront-to-origin caching behavior is not controlled by NAT Gateway settings, so this would not improve CloudFront cache hit rate or reduce origin fetches.

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: Configure CloudFront caching by setting appropriate cache-control headers and/or CloudFront cache policy/TTL values for the static objects — The most direct lever is improving CloudFront caching so that CloudFront serves more requests from its edge cache instead of repeatedly fetching from the S3 origin. Static images should be configured with cacheable HTTP headers (for example, cache-control) and/or a CloudFront cache policy with appropriate TTL values. When caching is effective, the cache hit rate increases, origin fetches decrease, and origin bandwidth/data transfer costs typically drop. The other options either eliminate caching (ensuring more origin fetches), bypass CloudFront entirely (removing edge caching), or use an unrelated networking component (NAT Gateway) that does not affect CloudFront cache behavior. Why others are wrong: Disabling caching guarantees more origin fetches because every request becomes a cache miss. Direct-to-S3 routing removes CloudFront’s edge caching, usually increasing origin traffic and latency. NAT Gateway configuration is unrelated to CloudFront’s ability to cache responses and therefore does not address the stated cause (poor caching).

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.