AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) — Question 733

A data analytics company has 80 offices that are distributed globally. Each office hosts 1 PB of data and has between 1 and 2 Gbps of internet bandwidth.

The company needs to perform a one-time migration of a large amount of data from its offices to Amazon S3. The company must complete the migration within 4 weeks.

Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?

Answer options

• A. Establish a new 10 Gbps AWS Direct Connect connection to each office. Transfer the data to Amazon S3.
• B. Use multiple AWS Snowball Edge storage-optimized devices to store and transfer the data to Amazon S3.
• C. Use an AWS Snowmobile to store and transfer the data to Amazon S3.
• D. Set up an AWS Storage Gateway Volume Gateway to transfer the data to Amazon S3.

Correct answer: B

Explanation

Migrating 80 PB of data over 1-2 Gbps internet connections within 4 weeks is physically impossible due to bandwidth limitations, and setting up 80 AWS Direct Connect links is too expensive and slow to provision for a one-time migration. AWS Snowball Edge Storage Optimized devices provide a fast, offline, and highly cost-effective method to migrate 1 PB from each distributed office simultaneously. AWS Snowmobile is not feasible because it is a physical shipping container that cannot be sent to 80 different global locations at once.