Question 1hardmultiple choice
Full question →hardmultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company stores application log files in an Amazon S3 bucket. The logs are accessed frequently for the first 30 days, then rarely accessed but must be retrievable within 12 hours. After 1 year, the logs must be archived for compliance with a retention period of 5 years, during which retrievals are expected to be extremely rare (one or two per year) and retrieval time of 12 hours is acceptable. The SysOps administrator wants to minimize storage costs. Which S3 lifecycle policy configuration should be used?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Distractor review
After 30 days, transition to S3 Standard-IA; after 365 days, transition to S3 Glacier Deep Archive; delete after 5 years.
S3 Standard-IA is more expensive than Glacier Flexible Retrieval for data that is rarely accessed. Using Glacier Flexible Retrieval for the middle tier would be more cost-effective given the rare access pattern after 30 days.
B
Best answer
After 30 days, transition to S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval; after 365 days, transition to S3 Glacier Deep Archive; delete after 5 years.
This lifecycle provides cost-optimized storage: S3 Standard for the first 30 days (frequent access), S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval for the next 335 days (rare access, 12-hour retrieval acceptable), and S3 Glacier Deep Archive for the final 4+ years (extremely rare access, lowest cost). This minimizes overall costs while meeting retrieval requirements.
C
Distractor review
After 30 days, transition to S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval; delete after 5 years.
This lifecycle lacks the transition to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 1 year. Since the data is extremely rarely accessed after 1 year, storing it in Glacier Flexible Retrieval is more expensive than Glacier Deep Archive.
D
Distractor review
After 30 days, transition to S3 Glacier Deep Archive; delete after 5 years.
Transitioning directly to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 30 days disregards the fact that data is accessed rarely but still occasionally (within 12 hours) for the first year. Glacier Deep Archive has lower storage cost but higher retrieval costs, and for data that may be accessed a few times a year, Glacier Flexible Retrieval is more cost-effective overall.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Related practice questions
Related SOA-C02 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A company uses Amazon CloudFront to deliver content to a global audience. The origin is an Application Load Balancer in us-east-1. The SysOps administrator wants to reduce costs by minimizing the number of requests that reach the origin server. Which action should the administrator take?
Question 2
A company runs a batch processing application on Amazon EC2 that runs for 2 hours every night. The workload can tolerate interruptions. Which EC2 purchasing option provides the lowest cost for this use case?
Question 3
A SysOps administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an Amazon RDS DB instance and receive an alarm when CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used to create this alarm?
Question 4
A company runs a critical web application on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application uses session stickiness (sticky sessions) to maintain user sessions. The SysOps administrator notices that when instances are replaced during a scale-in or failure event, users lose their session data. The administrator needs to preserve session data across instance failures without losing stickiness benefits. What should the administrator do?
Question 5
A company runs a production web application on a single Amazon EC2 instance. The application experiences a predictable and steady workload 24/7. The SysOps administrator wants to minimize compute costs for this instance while ensuring it remains available during the expected workload. Which EC2 purchasing option should the administrator use?
Question 6
A company has a VPC with public and private subnets. The private subnets host application servers that need to make outbound HTTPS connections to the internet. The SysOps administrator must implement a solution that provides outbound internet connectivity while preventing inbound connections from the internet. Additionally, the solution must allow the company to control which domains the application servers can access. Which solution should the administrator implement?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SOA-C02 question test?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: After 30 days, transition to S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval; after 365 days, transition to S3 Glacier Deep Archive; delete after 5 years. — The most cost-effective approach is to use S3 Standard for the first 30 days (frequent access), then transition to S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval for the next 335 days (rare access, 12-hour retrieval acceptable), and then to S3 Glacier Deep Archive for the final 4+ years (extremely rare access, lowest cost). This minimizes overall costs while meeting retrieval requirements. Option A uses Standard-IA which is more expensive than Glacier Flexible Retrieval for rarely accessed data. Option C lacks the transition to Deep Archive, missing savings. Option D transitions directly to Deep Archive after 30 days, but for data accessed occasionally in the first year, Glacier Flexible Retrieval is more cost-effective due to lower retrieval costs.
What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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