AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C02) — Question 602

A solutions architect needs to implement a solution to reduce a company's storage costs. All the company's data is in the Amazon S3 Standard storage class. The company must keep all data for at least 25 years. Data from the most recent 2 years must be highly available and immediately retrievable.
Which solution will meet these requirements?

Answer options

• A. Set up an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive immediately.
• B. Set up an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 2 years.
• C. Use S3 Intelligent-Tiering. Activate the archiving option to ensure that data is archived in S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
• D. Set up an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition objects to S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access (S3 One Zone-IA) immediately and to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 2 years.

Correct answer: B

Explanation

Option B is correct because keeping data in Amazon S3 Standard for the first 2 years ensures high availability and immediate retrieval, after which transitioning to S3 Glacier Deep Archive minimizes costs for the remaining retention period. Options A and D are incorrect because transitioning data immediately to S3 Glacier Deep Archive or S3 One Zone-IA fails to meet the requirement of high availability and immediate access for the first 2 years. Option C is incorrect because S3 Intelligent-Tiering does not guarantee the strict 2-year high-availability boundary as predictably as a direct lifecycle policy.