SOA-C02 Reliability and Business Continuity Practice Question
An application uploads files to an S3 bucket. The SysOps administrator needs to ensure that the files are automatically replicated to another bucket in a different AWS Region for disaster recovery. Which action should be taken?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse enabling versioning (a prerequisite for CRR) with the actual replication action, or they mistakenly think Transfer Acceleration or lifecycle policies can achieve cross-region replication.
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 Cross-Region Replication on the source bucket.
Cross-Region Replication (CRR) is the correct AWS feature to automatically replicate objects from a source S3 bucket to a destination bucket in a different AWS Region. CRR requires versioning to be enabled on both the source and destination buckets, and it copies every object uploaded to the source bucket asynchronously to the destination bucket, providing disaster recovery across regions.
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 Cross-Region Replication on the source bucket.
Why this is correct
Cross-Region Replication (CRR) is the correct mechanism because it asynchronously copies objects from your source S3 bucket to a separate destination bucket in a different AWS Region. To use CRR, you must enable versioning on both the source and destination buckets, and S3 creates an IAM role with permissions to read from the source and write to the destination. Once configured, every new upload is automatically replicated, including metadata and object versions, giving you a second copy in another region for disaster recovery and compliance.
- ✗
Use S3 Transfer Acceleration for faster uploads.
Why it's wrong here
S3 Transfer Acceleration uses AWS edge locations to route uploads over optimized network paths, reducing latency and improving throughput for clients far from the source bucket. However, it only speeds up the transfer of objects to the same, existing bucket; it does not create any additional copies and cannot replicate data across regions. The original object is stored only in the specified bucket, so this option fails to address any requirement for cross-region data duplication.
- ✗
Enable versioning on the source bucket.
Why it's wrong here
Enabling versioning on the source bucket preserves multiple versions of an object when it is overwritten or deleted, which protects against accidental changes and allows you to restore previous states. While versioning is actually a prerequisite for enabling Cross-Region Replication, by itself it does not copy data out of the bucket. All versions remain in the same source bucket and same region; no second copy is produced, so this does not satisfy a cross-region redundancy or disaster recovery need.
- ✗
Configure a lifecycle policy to transition objects to Glacier.
Why it's wrong here
A lifecycle policy that transitions objects to Amazon S3 Glacier changes the storage class of objects within the same source bucket, moving them to a lower-cost archival tier. This action only affects storage tiering and cost optimization; it does not create copies in another region, nor does it provide any redundancy beyond what the bucket already has. Glacier objects remain in the same single AWS Region as the original bucket, so this option has no replication benefit.
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 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.