Your organization stores daily transaction log files in a Cloud Storage bucket configured with Uniform Bucket-Level Access. An automated compliance audit script accesses and inspects all log files daily during the first 60 days following their creation. Currently, an Object Lifecycle Management rule immediately transitions all uploaded objects to the Archive storage class upon creation, resulting in substantial retrieval fee charges during the daily compliance audits. You need to reconfigure the operational storage strategy to minimize overall storage and retrieval costs without compromising daily audit access or altering bucket access control policies. Which action should you take?
- Update the Object Lifecycle Management rule to keep objects in the Standard storage class for 60 days before transitioning them to the Archive storage class.Answer
- BMaintain immediate transition to Archive storage upon upload and grant the audit service account direct Object Viewer permissions to waive data retrieval fees.
- CDisable Uniform Bucket-Level Access on the bucket and set individual fine-grained Object ACLs to allow free retrieval for the compliance audit script.
- DMigrate the transaction log files to a Cloud Bigtable instance with HDD storage nodes to eliminate object retrieval costs during daily reads.
Answer
Update the Object Lifecycle Management rule to keep objects in the Standard storage class for 60 days before transitioning them to the Archive storage class.
Cloud Storage pricing consists of storage capacity fees and operational/retrieval fees. While Archive storage offers the lowest monthly capacity rates, reading data from Archive storage incurs significant data retrieval fees. When data is accessed daily for 60 days, storing it in the Standard storage class during that active 60-day window avoids retrieval charges completely. Setting the lifecycle rule condition `age: 60` before executing `SetStorageClass: ARCHIVE` optimizes total operational expenditure.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
Cloud Storage Object Lifecycle Management cost optimization based on data access patterns