AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate

Explanation

Amazon S3 is the most cost-effective solution for this scenario because:

1. Long-term retention requirements: The logs must be retained for 7 years. Amazon S3 offers lifecycle policies and storage classes (like S3 Glacier Deep Archive) that are specifically designed for long-term archival storage at very low costs.

2. Concurrent access requirements: The reporting tool needs to access all files concurrently. Amazon S3 provides highly available, scalable object storage that can serve multiple concurrent requests without performance degradation.

3. Cost-effectiveness:

   • Amazon EBS: Block storage attached to EC2 instances, not designed for long-term archival or concurrent access from multiple sources. More expensive for long-term storage.
   • Amazon EFS: File system storage that supports concurrent access, but more expensive than S3 for long-term archival purposes.
   • Amazon EC2 instance store: Ephemeral storage that is lost when instances are stopped/terminated - completely unsuitable for 7-year retention.
   • Amazon S3: Object storage with tiered pricing (Standard, Intelligent-Tiering, Glacier, Glacier Deep Archive) that can significantly reduce costs for infrequently accessed data over 7 years.

4. Compliance features: S3 offers features like versioning, object lock, and compliance controls that help meet regulatory requirements.

5. Scalability: S3 automatically scales to handle any amount of data and concurrent access patterns.

Recommended implementation:

• Store logs in S3 Standard for initial access
• Use S3 Lifecycle policies to transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after a specified period
• Use S3 Select or Athena for querying log data directly from S3
• Ensure proper IAM policies for secure access

This approach provides the lowest cost while meeting all requirements: 7-year retention, concurrent access, and compliance needs.