For ensuring data is not deleted in an ILM policy, which option is the most appropriate to use?

• A. S3 Object Lock
• B. Cloud Storage Pool
• C. SnapLock Compliance
• D. S3 bucket access policy

Answer: (A)

Immutability within an ILM policy relies on a mechanism that prevents deletion for a defined period. S3 Object Lock provides this by applying a retention period (or a legal hold) to objects in an S3-compatible bucket, making them immutable and protected from deletion or overwriting during the retention window. This direct immutability is what to rely on when the goal is to ensure data cannot be deleted as part of the lifecycle management.

In contrast, a cloud storage pool is about organizing and tiering storage resources, a bucket access policy only governs permissions but doesn’t inherently prevent deletion, and SnapLock Compliance is a NetApp WORM feature that applies at certain NetApp storage surfaces and may not align with S3-stored data in an ILM context. So the S3 Object Lock approach best fulfills the non-deletion requirement in ILM.