AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 151

A company needs to retain application log files for a critical application for 10 years. The application team regularly accesses logs from the past month for troubleshooting, but logs older than 1 month are rarely accessed. The application generates more than 10 TB of logs per month.
Which storage option meets these requirements MOST cost-effectively?

Answer options

• A. Store the logs in Amazon S3. Use AWS Backup to move logs more than 1 month old to S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
• B. Store the logs in Amazon S3. Use S3 Lifecycle policies to move logs more than 1 month old to S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
• C. Store the logs in Amazon CloudWatch Logs. Use AWS Backup to move logs more than 1 month old to S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
• D. Store the logs in Amazon CloudWatch Logs. Use Amazon S3 Lifecycle policies to move logs more than 1 month old to S3 Glacier Deep Archive.

Correct answer: B

Explanation

Option B is the most cost-effective solution because it uses Amazon S3 Lifecycle policies to automatically transition logs older than 1 month to S3 Glacier Deep Archive, which is a low-cost storage option. Option A incorrectly suggests using AWS Backup, which is not the most efficient method for this scenario. Options C and D involve Amazon CloudWatch Logs, which are not as cost-effective for long-term storage compared to utilizing Amazon S3 with Lifecycle policies.