SAA-C03 Q109 · Cost

Question

A company runs an online order management system on AWS. The company stores order and inventory data for the previous 5 years in an Amazon Aurora MySQL database. The company deletes inventory data after 5 years. The company wants to optimize costs to archive data. What should a solutions architect do to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

**Option B: SELECT INTO OUTFILE S3 + S3 Lifecycle rules** perfectly addresses all requirements:

1. **Native Aurora MySQL feature**: `SELECT INTO OUTFILE S3` is a built-in Aurora MySQL extension that allows you to export query results directly to an Amazon S3 bucket. This is the most direct, efficient, and low-overhead method to move data from Aurora MySQL to S3.

2. **Cost optimization through archival**: Once data is exported to S3, it no longer consumes expensive Aurora storage. S3 is dramatically cheaper for storing archival data.

3. **S3 Lifecycle rules handle the full lifecycle**: Lifecycle rules can automatically:
   - Transition data to cheaper storage classes over time (e.g., S3 Standard → S3 Standard-IA → S3 Glacier → S3 Glacier Deep Archive)
   - **Delete objects after 5 years*

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🏗️ Architecture

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