GCP Professional Data Engineer Practice Question

Your organization ingests audit logs into the gs://audit-logs bucket. Objects are created in the Standard storage class, are queried frequently for the first month, and must remain undeletable for exactly 7 years (2 555 days) to satisfy compliance. After 30 days they should move to Nearline; after 120 days they should move to Coldline for the remainder of the retention period. Which bucket configuration meets these requirements with the fewest lifecycle rules?

Configure a 2 555-day retention policy and a single lifecycle rule that moves objects from Standard to Archive when Age > 30 days; omit any Delete rule because objects will age out automatically.
Enable an object hold on each new log file for 2 555 days and create one lifecycle rule that moves objects directly from Standard to Archive storage after 30 days; rely on manual deletion once the hold is cleared.
Enable a 2 555-day bucket retention policy and add three lifecycle rules: SetStorageClass to Nearline when Age > 30 days; SetStorageClass to Coldline when Age > 120 days; Delete when Age > 2 555 days.
Add lifecycle rules only: SetStorageClass to Nearline at 30 days, SetStorageClass to Coldline at 120 days, Delete at 2 555 days; do not set a retention policy because the Delete rule already defines the window.

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Answer Description

A bucket-level retention policy guarantees that no user or automation can delete an object before the compliance window ends. Separate lifecycle SetStorageClass rules handle the two required class transitions: one when the object's age is greater than 30 days (Standard ➝ Nearline) and another when age is greater than 120 days (Nearline ➝ Coldline). A single Delete rule with an Age condition of 2 555 days removes the object immediately after the retention period. Because the retention policy blocks deletions before 7 years, the Delete rule cannot violate compliance yet allows fully automatic cleanup. Relying on lifecycle alone cannot enforce immutability, and replacing Coldline with Archive or omitting the retention policy would breach either the latency or compliance requirements.

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