Efficient Management of Data Storage on AWS: Best Practices for Archive Storage

Archiving Files on AWS: Optimizing Data Storage and Cost Efficiency

Prev Question Next Question

Question

Your company has started hosting its data store on AWS by using the Simple Storage service.

They are storing files that are downloaded by users frequently.

After 3 months, the files need to be transferred to archive storage since they are not used beyond this point.

Which of the following could be used to manage this requirement effectively?

Answers

Explanations

Click on the arrows to vote for the correct answer

A. B. C. D.

Answer - B.

The AWS Documentation mentions the following.

To manage your objects so that they are stored cost-effectively throughout their lifecycle, you need to configure their lifecycle.

A lifecycle configuration is a set of rules that define actions that Amazon S3 applies to a group of objects.

There are two types of actions:

Transition actions-Define when objects transition to another storage class.

For example, you might choose to transition objects to the STANDARD_IA storage class 30 days after you created them or archive objects to the GLACIER storage class one year after creating them.

Expiration actions-Define when objects expire.

Amazon S3 deletes expired objects on your behalf.

The lifecycle expiration costs depend on when you choose to expire objects.

Option A is invalid since there is already the option of lifecycle policies.

Option C is invalid since lifecycle policies are used to transfer to Glacier or S3-Infrequent Access.

Option D is invalid since snapshots are used for EBS volumes.

For more information on S3 lifecycle policies, please visit the below URL-

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/object-lifecycle-mgmt.html

The most effective way to manage this requirement is to use Lifecycle policies in Amazon S3 to automatically transfer the files to a lower-cost storage class after a period of 3 months. This is because Amazon S3 offers multiple storage classes that provide different levels of durability, availability, performance, and cost.

Option A is not the best approach because it involves transferring the files manually using scripts, which is a time-consuming and error-prone process. In addition, it is difficult to keep track of which files have been transferred and which files have not.

Option B is the correct answer because Lifecycle policies allow you to automate the process of transferring objects to another storage class or deleting them after a specified period of time. You can set up a policy that transfers the files to Amazon S3 Glacier after 3 months of inactivity, which is a lower-cost storage class designed for data archiving and long-term backup.

Option C is not recommended because Cold HDD is a storage class optimized for infrequently accessed data that requires high throughput and low cost. It is not suitable for archiving data that is not accessed beyond a certain point, as it is not designed for long-term storage.

Option D is also not recommended because creating a snapshot of the files in S3 after 3 months would not transfer them to a lower-cost storage class. Snapshots are point-in-time copies of a volume that can be used to restore data, but they do not provide a way to archive data in a cost-effective manner.

In conclusion, the best way to manage this requirement is to use Lifecycle policies to transfer the files to Amazon S3 Glacier after a period of 3 months. This approach is cost-effective, scalable, and easy to automate.