Question

Difficulty: HardPlanning Cloud Storage Buckets and Storage Classes

A global gaming enterprise stores player match replay files in Google Cloud Storage. Telemetry and replay files are accessed heavily by players and analytics pipelines during the first 30 days after creation. Between 31 and 90 days, files are occasionally accessed by support teams investigating reports. After 90 days, the files are rarely accessed but must be retained for 3 years for compliance before being deleted.

Which TWO design decisions should the cloud architecture team implement to minimize total storage and retrieval costs while meeting access requirements?

  1. Set the default storage class of the Cloud Storage bucket to Standard Storage.Answer
  2. Configure Object Lifecycle Management rules to transition objects to Nearline Storage after 30 days and to Archive Storage after 90 days.Answer
  3. C
    Set the default storage class of the Cloud Storage bucket to Coldline Storage upon creation.
  4. D
    Configure an Object Lifecycle Management rule to transition objects directly to Archive Storage on day 5.

Answer

To optimize costs and satisfy access requirements, the bucket should use Standard Storage as its default class and apply Object Lifecycle Management rules that transition objects to Nearline Storage after 30 days and to Archive Storage after 90 days.
Selecting Standard Storage as the initial bucket default ensures zero retrieval fees during the high-access first 30 days. Setting lifecycle rules to transition objects to Nearline Storage at day 30 and Archive Storage at day 90 aligns each storage tier with actual access frequency, minimizing total cost of ownership while avoiding early deletion and retrieval penalties.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze access patterns for the first 30 days.
Heavy access during initial 30 days requires zero retrieval fees and no minimum storage duration.
Standard Storage delivers high performance for active workloads without incurring retrieval penalties.
2
Analyze access patterns for days 31 to 90.
Occasional access (once a month or less) aligns with Nearline Storage.
Nearline Storage reduces storage costs per gigabyte while offering fast access for data read less than once per month.
3
Analyze long-term compliance retention requirements beyond 90 days.
Data accessed less than once a year and retained for 3 years aligns with Archive Storage.
Archive Storage offers the lowest per-gigabyte cost for long-term cold data retention.

Key Concept

Selecting initial storage classes and designing multi-tier lifecycle transitions based on access frequency and retrieval cost trade-offs.
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