Questions 19 to 21

Question 19

An application allows users to upload and download files. Files older than 2 years will be accessed less frequently. A solutions architect needs to ensure that the application can scale to any number of files while maintaining high availability and durability.

Which scalable solutions should the solutions architect recommend?

1. Store the files on Amazon S3 with a lifecycle policy that moves objects older than two years to S3 Standard Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA).
2. Store the files on Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) with a lifecycle policy that moves objects older than two years to EFS Infrequent Access (EFS IA).
3. Store the files in Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes. Schedule snapshots of the volumes. Use the snapshots to archive data older than two years.
4. Store the files in Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes. Create a lifecycle policy to move files older than two years to Amazon S3 Glacier.

Correct Answer: 1

Explanation: S3 Standard-IA is for data that is accessed less frequently but requires rapid access when needed. S3 Standard-IA offers the high durability, high throughput, and low latency of S3 Standard, with a low per GB storage price as well as a low per GB retrieval fee. This combination of low cost and high performance makes S3 Standard-IA ideal for long-term storage and backups, and as a data store for disaster recovery files.

CORRECT: “Store the files on Amazon S3 with a lifecycle policy that moves objects older than two years to S3 Standard Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA).” is the correct answer.

INCORRECT: “Store the files on Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) with a lifecycle policy that moves objects older than two years to EFS Infrequent Access (EFS IA).” is incorrect. With EFS, you can transition files to EFS IA after a file has not been accessed for a specified period of time with options up to 90 days. You cannot transition based on an age of 2 years.

INCORRECT: “Store the files in Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes. Schedule snapshots of the volumes. Use the snapshots to archive data older than two years.” is incorrect. You cannot identify the age of data and archive snapshots this way with EBS.

INCORRECT: “Store the files in Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes. Create a lifecycle policy to move files older than two years to Amazon S3 Glacier.” is incorrect. You cannot archive files from an EBS volume to Glacier using lifecycle policies.

References:

https://aws.amazon.com/s3/storage-classes/