SOA-C02 Reliability and Business Continuity Practice Question
Which TWO steps should a SysOps administrator take to ensure data durability for an Amazon S3 bucket that stores critical documents? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse data durability (protection against loss) with data security (encryption or access control), leading them to select SSE-S3 or MFA Delete instead of versioning and 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 S3 Versioning.
S3 Versioning (B) protects against accidental deletion and overwrites by preserving every version of an object, including deletions as delete markers. This ensures data durability by allowing recovery of previous versions. Cross-Region Replication (E) provides durability by asynchronously replicating objects to a different AWS region, protecting against region-wide failures.
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 default encryption with SSE-S3.
Why it's wrong here
Enabling default encryption with SSE-S3 protects data at rest by encrypting it with AES-256, but encryption only addresses confidentiality, not durability. Durability is the ability to prevent data loss or corruption, while SSE-S3 does not create additional copies or protect against accidental deletion. Therefore, this measure fails to ensure that objects survive failures or destructive actions.
- ✓
Enable S3 Versioning.
Why this is correct
S3 Versioning is a correct step because it preserves every version of an object, including all overwrites and the original copy before a delete operation. When a DELETE is issued, versioning inserts a delete marker rather than physically removing the object, allowing straightforward rollback to a prior state. This directly mitigates permanent data loss caused by accidental user actions or application bugs, thus strengthening durability.
- ✗
Use S3 Transfer Acceleration.
Why it's wrong here
S3 Transfer Acceleration leverages CloudFront edge locations and optimized network paths to speed up large uploads over long distances, but it is purely a performance optimization. It does not change how S3 stores or replicates data, nor does it add any redundancy or recovery capability. Consequently, it has no bearing on durability requirements.
- ✗
Enable MFA Delete.
Why it's wrong here
MFA Delete adds a security layer requiring a one-time code from a hardware or virtual MFA device to permanently delete versions or suspend versioning. While this prevents unauthorized deletion, it does not replicate data across storage systems or create any additional copy of the object. Durability depends on redundant storage, not on access control, so enabling MFA Delete alone cannot ensure data survives infrastructure failures.
- ✓
Configure cross-region replication (CRR).
Why this is correct
Cross-region replication (CRR) is a correct step because it asynchronously replicates every uploaded object to a destination bucket in another AWS Region. This provides geographically separate copies, so even if the entire source Region fails or data is corrupted, the replicated data in the other Region remains available. CRR offers the disaster recovery capability needed for high durability and also supports compliance and low-latency access.
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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JA
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.