SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company needs to design a new solution for storing and retrieving user-uploaded images. The images are accessed frequently for the first 30 days and then rarely accessed after that. The company wants to minimize storage costs while maintaining low-latency access for frequently accessed images. Which storage strategy should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often choose Option D (all S3 Standard) because it guarantees low-latency access, overlooking the cost savings of transitioning to Standard-IA for data that becomes rarely accessed after 30 days.
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
✓
Store images in Amazon S3 Standard and use lifecycle policies to transition to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days.
Amazon S3 Standard provides low-latency access for frequently accessed images, and S3 lifecycle policies allow automatic transition to S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (Standard-IA) after 30 days, reducing storage costs while maintaining rapid access for the initial period. This strategy directly meets the requirement of minimizing costs without sacrificing performance for the first 30 days.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Store images in Amazon EBS volumes attached to a web server.
Why it's wrong here
EBS is block storage and not designed for object storage at scale; also cost-inefficient.
- ✓
Store images in Amazon S3 Standard and use lifecycle policies to transition to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days.
Why this is correct
Lifecycle policies automate cost optimization while keeping low-latency access during frequent access period.
- ✗
Store all images in Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval.
Why it's wrong here
Glacier has retrieval times that don't meet low-latency requirements for first 30 days.
- ✗
Store all images in Amazon S3 Standard.
Why it's wrong here
S3 Standard is costly for long-term storage of rarely accessed data.
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 SAP-C02 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 SAP-C02 exam.