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SOA-C02 Practice Question: S3 Intelligent-Tiering for unpredictable access…
This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of s3 intelligent-tiering for unpredictable access…. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. A key principle to apply: s3 Intelligent-Tiering. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A media company stores millions of video files in S3. Some files are accessed heavily after upload (when new) and rarely afterward; others are accessed unpredictably across months. The team cannot predict which files will be accessed and when. They want to minimize storage costs without risking retrieval latency penalties or per-object retrieval fees. Which storage class is appropriate?
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
Best answer
Use S3 Intelligent-Tiering so objects automatically move between Frequent and Infrequent Access tiers based on access patterns, with no retrieval fees
Intelligent-Tiering handles the unpredictable access pattern automatically. Objects accessed within 30 days stay in Frequent Access. Unaccessed objects move to Infrequent Access (40 percent lower cost). No retrieval fee ensures there is no cost penalty when an old file is accessed unexpectedly. The per-object monitoring fee is offset by storage savings for objects over 128 KB.
B
Distractor review
Use S3 Standard-IA and configure a lifecycle policy to move objects back to Standard after every access
Standard-IA charges a per-GB retrieval fee on every GET request. Lifecycle policies cannot trigger on individual object reads — they are time-based transitions. There is no way to automatically move objects back to Standard after an access event with a lifecycle rule.
C
Distractor review
Use S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval for all objects because it offers the lowest storage cost with millisecond retrieval
Glacier Instant Retrieval has the lowest storage cost in the Glacier family but charges a significant per-GB retrieval fee on every GET. For files accessed unpredictably and frequently enough to remain in the Frequent Access tier, retrieval fees would exceed the storage savings. It also has a 90-day minimum storage duration.
D
Distractor review
Use S3 Standard for all objects because it has no retrieval fees and provides the best availability
S3 Standard has no retrieval fee and is the correct choice for frequently accessed data, but it is the most expensive storage class. For millions of files with unpredictable, infrequent aggregate access, Intelligent-Tiering reduces costs significantly while maintaining the same retrieval characteristics.
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
Treat this as a scenario question. Identify the problem, the constraint, and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- S3 Intelligent-Tiering
- automatic tiering
- access pattern uncertainty
- no retrieval fee
- monitoring fee
TExam Day Tips
- 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.
Key takeaway
S3 Intelligent-Tiering
Related practice questions
Related SOA-C02 practice-question pages
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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?
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SOA-C02 question test?
S3 Intelligent-Tiering
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Use S3 Intelligent-Tiering so objects automatically move between Frequent and Infrequent Access tiers based on access patterns, with no retrieval fees — S3 Intelligent-Tiering automatically moves objects between Frequent Access and Infrequent Access tiers based on 30-day access patterns, and optionally to Archive Instant Access, Archive Access, and Deep Archive Access tiers for longer inactivity periods. Unlike S3 Standard-IA or S3 Glacier, Intelligent-Tiering has no per-object retrieval fee and no minimum storage duration penalty. A small monthly monitoring and automation fee per object applies. Objects accessed after being tiered to Archive Instant Access restore in milliseconds; Archive Access and Deep Archive tiers take minutes to hours and require activation.
What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?
Review s3 Intelligent-Tiering, then practise related SOA-C02 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.
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