PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
A company is running SAP on EC2 instances with EBS volumes. They need to take daily snapshots of the EBS volumes and retain them for 90 days. Which approach is most cost-effective?
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
✓
Use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) to automate snapshots and set a retention policy of 90 days.
Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) automates the creation and deletion of EBS snapshots, allowing you to set a retention policy of 90 days. This is cost-effective as old snapshots are automatically deleted. Option B is incorrect because S3 Lifecycle policies manage objects in S3, not EBS snapshots; snapshots are stored in S3 but are managed by DLM or AWS Backup. Option C is incorrect because storing snapshots indefinitely would incur unnecessary costs. Option D, AWS Backup, is a managed service that can be used but may have additional costs compared to DLM, and DLM is specifically designed for cost-effective snapshot management.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) to automate snapshots and set a retention policy of 90 days.
Why this is correct
DLM automates and manages lifecycle, costing only for storage.
- ✗
Use S3 Lifecycle policies to transition snapshots to Glacier after 90 days.
Why it's wrong here
EBS snapshots are stored in S3 but lifecycle policies don't apply directly.
- ✗
Create a script that takes snapshots daily and stores them indefinitely.
Why it's wrong here
Storing snapshots indefinitely incurs high costs.
- ✗
Use AWS Backup to schedule backups and set retention to 90 days.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Backup has additional backup costs beyond storage.
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 |
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PAS-C01 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 PAS-C01 exam.