SOA-C02 Networking and Content Delivery Practice Question

A company wants to use Amazon CloudFront to distribute content globally with low latency. Which TWO features of CloudFront help achieve this?

⚠ Common exam trap

SOA-C02 often tests the distinction between CloudFront's built-in caching features (edge locations and regional edge caches) and other AWS services like S3 Transfer Acceleration or Global Accelerator that also aim to reduce latency but are not part of CloudFront.

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

✓

Regional edge caches that provide additional caching layers

Option B is correct because CloudFront's global network of edge locations caches content at sites physically close to end users, so requests are served from the nearest point of presence and round-trip latency is minimized. Option A is correct because regional edge caches sit between the edge locations and the origin, providing an additional, larger caching layer that keeps less-popular content cached longer and reduces the number of origin fetches, which further lowers latency and improves hit ratios. Option C is not correct because S3 Transfer Acceleration speeds up uploads to S3 buckets over the AWS backbone and is not a CloudFront content-delivery feature. Option D is not correct because VPC peering connects VPCs privately and does not provide global edge caching or low-latency content distribution. Option E is not correct because AWS Global Accelerator is a separate service that routes traffic over the AWS global network using static anycast IPs; it is not a CloudFront feature used to achieve edge caching.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

✓
Regional edge caches that provide additional caching layers
Why this is correct
Regional edge caches are a middle-tier layer between CloudFront edge locations and the origin server. They have larger storage capacity than edge locations and retain content longer, which improves cache hit ratios for content that is requested less frequently. When an edge location misses, it can fetch from the regional edge cache instead of hitting the origin directly, reducing origin load and latency. This is a native CloudFront architecture component, not a separate service.
✓
Edge locations that cache content near users
Why this is correct
Edge locations are the first point of presence for CloudFront, caching content in geographically distributed data centers to minimize latency for end users. Each edge cache has limited capacity and typically holds the most popular content with short TTLs, since they serve the majority of requests. When a user requests content, CloudFront checks the nearest edge location first, and only forwards the request to a regional edge cache or origin if the content is absent or stale.
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Use of S3 Transfer Acceleration
Why it's wrong here
S3 Transfer Acceleration is designed to speed up the initial upload or final download of objects to and from an S3 bucket by using AWS edge locations as a transit layer. It is an ingress optimization feature, not a content delivery or caching feature, and it has no effect on how CloudFront caches or distributes objects to viewers. If you need faster content delivery to end users, CloudFront itself provides that performance; Transfer Acceleration is only relevant for getting data into S3 faster.
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VPC peering to connect to origins
Why it's wrong here
VPC peering establishes private IP connectivity between two VPCs, allowing resources to communicate as if they are on the same network. It is irrelevant to CloudFront distribution because CloudFront origins are typically public endpoints, such as an S3 bucket website endpoint or an Application Load Balancer, and CloudFront uses the public internet to reach the origin. Additionally, peering does not provide any caching or edge delivery layer, so it cannot help distribute content to users globally.
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Integration with AWS Global Accelerator
Why it's wrong here
AWS Global Accelerator is a networking service that improves availability and performance for TCP/UDP applications by directing user traffic to the nearest AWS edge location, but it does not cache content. It is suitable for non-HTTP protocols like gaming, VoIP, or thick clients, whereas CloudFront caches HTTP/HTTPS objects and handles dynamic API responses. These services are complementary; Global Accelerator's anycast IPs are not a content caching mechanism, so it is not a component of CloudFront's distribution model.

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

SOA-C02 Networking and Content Delivery Practice Question

Why each option matters

Option-by-option breakdown

AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison

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