A company runs its legacy web application on AWS. The web application server runs on an Amazon EC2 instance in the public subnet of a VPC. The web…

A gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 provides a secure, private connection between resources in a VPC and the S3 service. By creating a gateway endpoint and adding a route to the subnet's route table that directs S3-bound traffic to this endpoint, the EC2 instance can communicate with S3 without using an internet gateway or NAT device. This ensures that the data transfer remains entirely within the AWS network, directly addressing the requirement to avoid the public S3 endpoint. This is the standard, most direct, and cost-effective solution for this scenario.

B: Amazon S3 is a global service that does not reside within a VPC. It is architecturally impossible to move an S3 bucket "inside" a VPC.

C: An S3 access point simplifies access management policies but does not create the private network path. A VPC endpoint is still required to route traffic privately.

D: AWS Direct Connect is used to establish a dedicated private connection from an on-premises data center to AWS, not for connecting services within AWS.

1. Amazon VPC User Guide

Gateway VPC endpoints: "A gateway endpoint is a gateway that you specify as a target for a route in your route table for traffic destined to a supported AWS service... You can use a gateway endpoint to allow instances in your VPC to access Amazon S3... without an internet gateway." (See section: "Gateway VPC endpoints").

2. Amazon VPC User Guide

VPC endpoints for Amazon S3: "Amazon S3 supports gateway endpoints. If you have resources in a private subnet in your VPC that need to access Amazon S3

you can use a gateway endpoint for Amazon S3." (See section: "VPC endpoints for Amazon S3").

3. Amazon S3 User Guide

Restricting access to an Amazon S3 access point from a virtual private cloud: "To enforce that all requests to your access point are from your VPC

you can use a VPC endpoint." This document clarifies that the endpoint provides the network path

while the access point provides policy control. (See section: "Restricting access to an Amazon S3 access point from a virtual private cloud").

4. AWS Direct Connect User Guide

What is AWS Direct Connect?: "AWS Direct Connect is a cloud service solution that makes it easy to establish a dedicated network connection from your premises to AWS." This defines its purpose as connecting external premises to AWS

not for intra-AWS service communication. (See section: "What is AWS Direct Connect?").