A team wants to cut storage costs by putting their self-managed database's data files in Amazon S3, so the database engine reads and writes them there in place. What should they be told?
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02), objective 3. Cloud technology and services easy
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The options
Correct That will not work: S3 stores whole objects that are replaced as a unit and is reached through an API, whereas a database needs the small in-place writes that block storage such as Amazon EBS provides
Correct. The mismatch is fundamental rather than a matter of configuration — a database updates a few bytes in the middle of a large file constantly, and object storage has no such operation.
Not correct It will work once versioning is enabled on the bucket
Wrong. Versioning keeps previous copies of an object each time it is overwritten. It is a data-protection feature and has nothing to do with writing part of an object.
Not correct It will work, because S3 can be attached as an instance's root volume
Wrong. Root and boot volumes are EBS or instance store. S3 is not a block device and cannot be booted from.
Not correct It will work provided the bucket is created in the same Availability Zone as the instance
Wrong on the facts. Buckets are Regional; you never choose an Availability Zone for one, and S3 stores objects redundantly across zones for you.
Why
Three storage shapes, chosen by how the application expects to reach the data. Object storage (S3): a flat namespace of buckets and keys, whole-object writes, an HTTP API, effectively unlimited capacity — right for media, backups, logs, static websites and data lakes. Block storage (EBS, instance store): a raw volume the operating system formats and writes blocks to, attached to one instance — right for boot volumes and databases. File storage (EFS, FSx): a shared file system that many machines mount at once.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- AWS exam guide task statement 3.6
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