A company stores compliance documents in S3 that must be retained for 7 years but are almost never accessed after the first 30 days, except for rare audits requiring retrieval within 12 hours. Which approach minimizes storage cost while meeting the retrieval requirement?
A) Keep all objects in S3 Standard for the full 7 years.
B) Use an S3 Lifecycle rule to transition objects to S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval after 30 days.
C) Use an S3 Lifecycle rule to transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 30 days.
D) Delete the objects after 30 days and store them on local tape backups instead.
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval offers low storage cost with retrieval times ranging from minutes (Expedited) to a few hours (Standard), comfortably meeting a 12-hour requirement, and a Lifecycle rule automates the transition.
Why the others are wrong: (A) is far more expensive than necessary for rarely-accessed data. (C) Glacier Deep Archive is cheaper but has standard retrieval times of about 12 hours and bulk retrieval up to 48 hours — riskier for a strict audit deadline. (D) abandons cloud durability/compliance guarantees and reintroduces manual tape management.