Data lifecycle, versioning and TTL: DEA-C01 study notes and practice questions
What to know about Data lifecycle, versioning and TTL for the DEA-C01 exam, from the Data Store Management domain (26% of the exam guide), then 1 free question to test it. Part of the DEA-C01 study guide.
Lifecycle questions give access patterns and retention rules and ask for the cheapest compliant setup.
S3 storage classes
Class
Fits
Standard
Hot data, frequent reads
Intelligent-Tiering
Unknown or changing access; moves objects between tiers automatically, no retrieval fees
Standard-IA / One Zone-IA
Infrequent reads with millisecond access; One Zone for re-creatable data
Glacier Instant Retrieval
Rarely read, but needs millisecond access (such as quarterly)
Glacier Flexible Retrieval
Archive; minutes to hours to restore
Glacier Deep Archive
Long-term retention; restores within 12 to 48 hours; lowest cost
IA and Glacier classes have minimum storage durations and retrieval fees, so they don’t suit short-lived data.
Lifecycle rules
Transition objects to cheaper classes after N days, filtered by prefix or tag.
Expire objects, old versions (NoncurrentVersionExpiration) and incomplete multipart uploads.
Apply rules to raw landing zones so temporary data doesn’t grow forever.
Retention and protection
S3 Versioning protects against overwrites and deletes.
S3 Object Lock (WORM) in compliance mode stops anyone, including root, deleting before the retention date; governance mode lets privileged users override. Legal holds have no end date.
S3 Replication copies data to another Region or account for resilience or residency.
AWS Backup covers DynamoDB, RDS, EFS and S3 with policies.
Other stores
DynamoDB TTL expires items automatically; Streams can archive them to S3 first.
Redshift: UNLOAD old data to S3 and query it with Spectrum; cold data doesn’t need cluster storage.
CloudWatch Logs retention settings and Kinesis retention periods also cost money.
Common traps
Deep Archive for data needed within minutes.
IA for objects deleted after a week, paying the 30-day minimum.
Governance mode when the rule says nobody may delete.
A property-management company stores raw inspection files in a versioned Amazon S3 bucket. Current versions must be deleted one year after they are created. Older versions that were overwritten or replaced should be removed after 30 days, so the bucket does not keep growing.
The bucket must stay versioned, because the company restores accidentally overwritten files within those 30 days.
Which configuration meets these requirements?
Choose one answer.
AA. Turn off versioning on the bucket, so that overwritten objects are not kept and the bucket stops growing.
BB. Add a lifecycle rule that moves current versions to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 365 days, and keep every noncurrent version forever.
CC. Add a lifecycle rule that expires current versions after 365 days, and another that expires noncurrent versions after 30 days.
DD. Turn on S3 Object Lock in compliance mode for all objects, so that the files are kept for the retention period and then removed automatically.
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: C
A. Wrong: Turning off versioning removes the 30-day restore window that the company needs. The option fails the restore requirement.
B. Wrong: Moving objects to an archive class keeps them, so the bucket still grows and nothing is deleted. The option does not meet the deletion requirement.
C. Right: Correct. The current-version rule deletes files one year after creation, and the noncurrent-version rule removes overwritten copies after 30 days. The bucket stays versioned, so recent overwrites can still be restored. Learn more: Examples of S3 Lifecycle configurations (opens in a new tab)
D. Wrong: Object Lock prevents deletion until the retention period ends, and it does not remove objects automatically. The option blocks the cleanup and does not match the requirement.
Explanation
S3 lifecycle rules can expire current versions and noncurrent versions on different timelines. Expiring current versions after one year and noncurrent versions after 30 days deletes the old data while keeping the bucket versioned for short-term restores. Turning versioning off, archiving everything or using Object Lock does not meet the combined requirement.
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