SAA-C03 Design Resilient Architectures Practice Question
Your media processing pipeline writes original uploads to an S3 bucket and later generates derivative files. An operator accidentally deletes a subset of original uploads in production. You need to (1) restore the deleted objects with minimal data loss and (2) protect against both regional disasters and future operator mistakes. The company requires recovery even if objects are deleted and later overwritten.
What is the most effective change to meet these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often assume S3 bucket policies or encryption alone can protect against deletion, but only versioning preserves object history, and only replication provides regional disaster recovery.
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 versioning on the bucket and configure cross-Region replication so previous versions are available after regional loss and accidental deletion.
Enabling S3 Versioning preserves all object versions, including deleted markers and overwritten objects, allowing recovery from accidental deletions. Cross-Region Replication (CRR) replicates both current and previous versions to a secondary region, providing protection against regional disasters. This combination ensures that even if objects are deleted and later overwritten, the original versions remain recoverable in both the source and destination buckets.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Enable S3 versioning on the bucket and configure cross-Region replication so previous versions are available after regional loss and accidental deletion.
Why this is correct
Versioning retains prior object versions, and cross-Region replication provides redundancy across Regions for recovery after deletion or disaster.
- ✗
Move all objects to S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval and apply a lifecycle policy to keep only the latest object copy.
Why it's wrong here
Glacier storage tiers do not prevent deletion of the latest version, and keeping only the latest copy fails the recovery requirement.
- ✗
Use S3 server-side encryption with KMS keys and rely on access logs to manually recover the deleted objects.
Why it's wrong here
Encryption protects confidentiality but does not retain deleted data, and access logs do not reconstruct object contents.
- ✗
Enable S3 bucket policies that deny DeleteObject, but do not enable versioning or replication.
Why it's wrong here
A deny policy can reduce future mistakes, but it does not provide recovery for the already-deleted objects or disaster resilience.
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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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.