A company stores customer records in Amazon S3. The company must not delete or modify the customer record data for 7 years after each record is…

The core requirement is to make data immutable for 7 years, even for the root user. S3 Object Lock in Compliance mode is specifically designed for this purpose. In Compliance mode, a protected object version cannot be overwritten or deleted by any user, including the root user in the AWS account, until the retention period expires. Setting a default retention period of 7 years on the bucket ensures that all new customer records automatically inherit this strict, unchangeable WORM (Write-Once, Read-Many) protection, fulfilling all stated requirements.

1. AWS S3 User Guide

"Retention modes": "In compliance mode

a protected object version can't be overwritten or deleted by any user

including the root user in your AWS account. When an object is locked in compliance mode

its retention mode can't be changed

and its retention period can't be shortened." This directly supports the choice of Compliance mode.

2. AWS S3 User Guide

"Retention modes": "In governance mode

users can't overwrite or delete an object version or alter its lock settings unless they have special permissions." This confirms why Governance mode is incorrect for this scenario.

3. AWS S3 User Guide

"Legal holds": "A legal hold doesn't have an associated retention period and remains in effect until you explicitly remove it." This clarifies why a legal hold is not suitable for a fixed 7-year requirement.

4. AWS S3 User Guide

"Default retention settings": "You can configure a default retention period for a bucket. When you set a default retention period on a bucket

any object that is uploaded to that bucket without an explicit retention period receives the default retention period." This supports using a default setting for operational efficiency.