AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02) — Question 310

A developer is deploying a company's application to Amazon EC2 instances. The application generates gigabytes of data files each day. The files are rarely accessed, but the files must be available to the application's users within minutes of a request during the first year of storage. The company must retain the files for 7 years.

How can the developer implement the application to meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?

Answer options

• A. Store the files in an Amazon S3 bucket. Use the S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval storage class. Create an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition the files to the S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage class after 1 year.
• B. Store the files in an Amazon S3 bucket. Use the S3 Standard storage class. Create an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition the files to the S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval storage class after 1 year.
• C. Store the files on an Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume. Use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (Amazon DLM) to create snapshots of the EBS volumes and to store those snapshots in Amazon S3.
• D. Store the files on an Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) mount. Configure EFS lifecycle management to transition the files to the EFS Standard- Infrequent Access (Standard-IA) storage class after 1 year.

Correct answer: A

Explanation

Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval is the ideal and most cost-effective tier for infrequently accessed data that requires millisecond retrieval times, satisfying the first-year requirement. Transitioning the files to Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive after one year provides the lowest-cost storage option for the remaining six years of the retention period. Using alternative storage services like Amazon EBS or Amazon EFS, or starting with S3 Standard, would result in significantly higher costs.