SOA-C02 Reliability and Business Continuity Practice Question
A company stores critical application logs in an Amazon S3 bucket. The SysOps administrator must implement a backup strategy that protects against accidental deletion of objects and allows recovery of previous versions. The solution must be cost-effective and require minimal operational overhead. (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that replication or Object Lock alone provides version recovery, when versioning is the core feature that preserves previous versions of objects.
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.
Enabling S3 Versioning preserves all object versions, allowing recovery from accidental deletion or overwrite. Pairing it with a lifecycle policy that expires noncurrent versions after a defined period keeps storage costs under control by automatically removing older versions that are no longer needed. Together, these native features provide a cost-effective, low-maintenance backup strategy for the log bucket.
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 Cross-Region Replication to a bucket in another region.
Why it's wrong here
Cross-Region Replication copies objects to a bucket in a different region, providing geographic redundancy. However, it replicates only the current version unless versioning is enabled on both buckets, and it does not inherently allow recovery of previous versions if an object is overwritten. It also incurs additional data transfer and storage costs, which may not be the most cost-effective for simple version recovery.
- ✗
Enable S3 Object Lock in governance mode with a retention period of 30 days.
Why it's wrong here
S3 Object Lock prevents object deletion or overwrite for a specified retention period, which protects against accidental deletion. However, it does not by itself allow recovery of previous versions if an object is overwritten; it only blocks deletion. For version recovery, you still need versioning. Object Lock also adds complexity and may not be the minimal-overhead choice for this scenario.
- ✓
Enable S3 Versioning on the bucket.
Why this is correct
S3 Versioning preserves every version of an object, so if an object is overwritten or deleted, previous versions remain accessible. This directly addresses accidental deletion and enables recovery of prior versions without needing to copy data elsewhere. It is a native feature that requires no additional infrastructure and incurs storage costs only for the retained versions, making it cost-effective for this requirement.
- ✓
Configure an S3 Lifecycle policy to expire noncurrent versions after 90 days.
Why this is correct
When versioning is enabled, a lifecycle policy can automatically expire noncurrent versions after a set period, such as 90 days. This prevents unlimited accumulation of old versions, controlling storage costs while still allowing recovery of previous versions within the retention window. It is a low-overhead, cost-effective complement to versioning for managing backup retention.
- ✗
Configure an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 30 days.
Why it's wrong here
Transitioning objects to Glacier Deep Archive reduces storage cost for long-term retention, but it does not protect against accidental deletion or provide version recovery. If an object is deleted before the transition, it is gone. This policy addresses cost optimization for archival data, not the required backup and recovery capabilities.
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 and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
This SOA-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 SOA-C02 exam.