Minimizing S3 Data Transfer Costs with Requester Pays

SAA-C03 By islever Editorial Last updated

Design cost-optimized storage solutions.

Short answer

A Configure the Requester Pays feature on the company’s S3 bucket to shift data transfer costs to the marketing firm.

Question

A consumer survey company has gathered data for several years from a specific geographic region. The company stores this data in an Amazon S3 bucket in an AWS Region. The company has started to share this data with a marketing firm in a new geographic region. The company has granted the firm's AWS account access to the S3 bucket. The company wants to minimize the data transfer costs when the marketing firm requests data from the S3 bucket. Which solution will meet these requirements?
  1. Configure the Requester Pays feature on the company’s S3 bucket. Correct Answer
  2. Configure S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) from the company’s S3 bucket to one of the marketing firm’s S3 buckets.
  3. Configure AWS Resource Access Manager to share the S3 bucket with the marketing firm AWS account.
  4. Configure the company’s S3 bucket to use S3 Intelligent-Tiering Sync the S3 bucket to one of the marketing firm’s S3 buckets.

Key Takeaways

The key insight is distinguishing between reducing total network egress charges versus shifting who bears those charges; Requester Pays shifts the cost to the consumer rather than eliminating it.

This question addresses how to minimize data transfer costs for a bucket owner when sharing data across regions using AWS S3. It establishes that enabling the Requester Pays feature is the correct architectural choice to shift cost liability.

Common mistake: Many learners select Cross-Region Replication (B) assuming it reduces costs by caching data locally, failing to realize that replication itself incurs cross-region transfer fees and does not solve the initial access cost issue for the owner.

Expert Analysis

Why the Answer Is Correct

Enabling Requester Pays on the source S3 bucket ensures that any requests made to the bucket are billed to the requester (the marketing firm), not the bucket owner (the survey company). When the marketing firm accesses the data, they pay for both the request operations and the data transfer out of the source region. This directly minimizes the data transfer costs incurred by the company, which is the specific requirement stated in the scenario.

Why the Other Options Are Wrong

Option B, S3 Cross-Region Replication, involves copying data from the source region to the marketing firm's region. This process generates cross-region data transfer charges that the source account must pay during replication, increasing overall costs rather than minimizing them for the owner. Option C, AWS RAM, allows sharing resources but does not inherently change billing structures or transfer costs. Option D, S3 Intelligent-Tiering, optimizes storage costs based on access patterns but has no impact on data transfer or networking costs.

Community Comment Notes

Community consensus heavily favors Option A, with many users noting that the question asks to minimize costs for the company, not the total system cost. As one commenter noted, "We don't care about the marketing firm" regarding their expense, only that the company saves money. Some dissenters argued for replication, but these views were often corrected by pointing out that replication creates new transfer liabilities for the owner.

Official Reference

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/RequesterPaysBuckets.html

This link opens the official vendor documentation in a new tab.

Exam Strategy

Always carefully identify whose cost is being minimized in the prompt. If the goal is to reduce the bucket owner's expenses when others access data, look for 'Requester Pays'. If the goal was to reduce latency or total infrastructure spend including replication, replication might be considered, but it rarely minimizes the owner's immediate transfer bill.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Requester Pays reduce the total amount of data transferred?

No, it does not reduce the volume of data transferred. It simply changes the billing entity from the bucket owner to the requester.

Why is Cross-Region Replication incorrect for minimizing owner costs?

Replication triggers cross-region data transfer charges that the source bucket owner must pay, thereby increasing their costs rather than minimizing them.

More SAA-C03 FAQ →

Community Votes

A
82%
B
18%

82% of anonymous learners picked answer A. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.

Discussion 9 contributions

Compiled from public community threads and reader submissions, lightly edited for clarity. Handles and vote tallies are shown as recorded, and comments reflect the views of individual contributors.

From public community threads 9

  1. pujithacg8 👍 4
    A is the correct answer https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/RequesterPaysBuckets.html
  2. martinadurcakova1 👍 3 Answered A
    A. Configure the Requester Pays feature on the company's S3 bucket. Explanation: A. Configuring the Requester Pays feature on the company's S3 bucket is the most appropriate solution. With Requester Pays, the marketing firm's AWS account will be responsible for the data transfer costs when accessing the data in the S3 bucket, minimizing the data transfer costs for the consumer survey company. B. Configuring S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) from the company's S3 bucket to one of the marketing firm's S3 buckets would not be the most cost-effective solution, as the company would still be responsible for the data transfer costs.
  3. MatAlves 👍 2
    The Requester Pays feature allows the bucket owner to offload the data transfer costs to the requester. When this feature is enabled, the marketing firm would pay for the data transfer when they access the data in the survey company's S3 bucket, which effectively minimizes costs for the survey company. This means that the most cost-effective solution for the survey company, given that the marketing firm is accessing the data, is "A"
  4. LeonSauveterre 👍 1 Answered A
    Read again - "The company wants to minimize the data transfer costs when the marketing firm requests data from the S3 bucket." So as long as the company saves money, bravo. We don't care about the marketing firm. When enabling Requester Pays, the marketing firm (requester) pays for the costs of data requests and data transfer out of the S3 bucket, instead of the data owner (the consumer survey company). B - CRR does not inherently reduce costs. In fact, replication incurs additional storage and transfer costs for the data owner, who would still bear the cost of replication, which contradicts the requirement to minimize their own data transfer costs. C - RAM is used to share resources like S3 buckets, but it doesn't affect data transfer costs. D - This helps reduce storage costs by moving objects between storage classes based on access patterns, but it doesn't reduce data transfer costs for requests made by the marketing firm.
  5. Anyio 👍 1 Answered B
    The correct answer is B. Configure S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) from the company’s S3 bucket to one of the marketing firm’s S3 buckets. Explanation: Option A: Incorrect. The Requester Pays feature can help distribute the cost of data requests by billing the requestor, but it does not reduce the overall data transfer costs. It only shifts who pays for the data transfer, not the amount. Option B: Correct. S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) replicates the data to a bucket in the marketing firm's region. This allows the marketing firm to access the data from a local region, minimizing cross-region data transfer charges each time data is accessed.
Show 4 more comments
  1. ARV14 👍 1 Answered B
    This is the same question as question 88. One difference is "it's data transfer costs" in question 88. Here it is "minimize the data transfer costs". A or B can be correct based on whether they are asking for reducing data transfer costs for survey company or both of them.
  2. [Removed] 👍 1
    Answer B seems to be more logic, the question didn't mention which account will pay
  3. AMEJack 👍 1 Answered A
    Sorry that was for the next question.
  4. JunsK1e 👍 2 Answered A
    Letter A

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