Q25 — AWS SAA-C03 Ch.17

Question 25 of 89 | ← Chapter 17

Q1325. An adventure company has launched a new feature on its mobile app. Users can use the feature to upload their hiking and rafting photos and videos anytime. The photos and videos are stored in Amazon S3 Standard storage in an S3 bucket and are served through Amazon CloudFront. The company needs to optimize the cost of the storage. A solutions architect discovers that most of the uploaded photos and videos are accessed infrequently after 30 days. However, some of the uploaded photos and videos are accessed frequently after 30 days. The solutions architect needs to implement a solution that maintains millisecond retrieval availability of the photos and videos at the lowest possible cost.Which solution will meet these requirements?

Correct Answer: A. Configure S3 Intelligent-Tiering on the S3 bucket.

Explanation

To optimize storage costs while maintaining millisecond retrieval availability for both frequently and infrequently accessed photos/videos after 30 days, the best solution is:Correct Answer:A. Configure S3 Intelligent-Tiering on the S3 bucket.Why S3 Intelligent-Tiering is the Best Choice?\1. Automatically Optimizes Costs Based on Access PatternsS3 Intelligent-Tiering is designed for unknown or unpredictable access patterns.It automatically moves objects between two access tiers:Frequent Access tier (same cost as S3 Standard) for actively used data. Infrequent Access (IA) tier (lower cost) for data accessed less frequently.No retrieval fees (unlike S3 Glacier tiers).Maintains millisecond latency for both tiers, ensuring fast access when needed.\2. Meets the Requirement of Mixed Access PatternsThe problem states:Most photos/videos are infrequently accessed after 30 days (ideal for IA tier). Some photos/videos remain frequently accessed after 30 days (stay in Frequent Access tier). S3 Intelligent-Tiering handles both cases seamlessly, unlike lifecycle policies that force all objects into a single tier.\3. No Manual Management RequiredUnlike S3 Lifecycle policies (B), which require defining fixed transition rules (e.g., "move all objects to Glacier after 30 days"), Intelligent-Tiering adapts automatically. This reduces operational overhead and avoids unexpected retrieval costs if some objects need frequent access later.Why Other Options Are Less Suitable?B. S3 Lifecycle Policy S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 30 days Glacier Deep Archive has 12-hour retrieval latency, violating the millisecond retrieval requirement. Use case: Long-term archival (e.g., compliance backups) where retrieval speed is unimportant.Not suitable for data that may still need fast access.C. Replace S3 with Amazon EFS mounted on EC2EFS is a shared file system, not an object storage replacement for S3. Higher cost than S3 Intelligent-Tiering for large-scale unstructured data. Poor fit for serving static content via CloudFront (S3 is optimized for this).D. Add Cache-Control: max-age=30 days headerThis only affects browser/CDN caching, not S3 storage costs. Does not change how S3 stores the objects (they remain in Standard storage). Use case: Reducing repeat downloads from S3 by caching at the edge (CloudFront already handles this).Best Architecture for This ScenarioStore photos/videos in S3 Standard (initial upload).Enable S3 Intelligent-Tiering on the bucket to auto-optimize costs. Serve via Amazon CloudFront for low-latency global delivery. No lifecycle policies needed (Intelligent-Tiering handles transitions).ConclusionThe best solution that minimizes costs while maintaining millisecond retrieval for both frequently and infrequently accessed data is:A. Configure S3 Intelligent-Tiering on the S3 bucket.Other options either introduce unacceptable latency (B), are not cost-effective (C), or do not address storage optimization (D).