S3 artifact stores and provenance

Exam alignment: DOP-C02 Domain 1 task statements for pipelines, testing, artifacts, or deployment.

Learning objective

Protect generic build artifacts with versioning, encryption, checksums, manifests, and lifecycle rules.

Difficulty / Schwierigkeitsgrad	Intermediate
Study time / Lernzeit	120 minutes
Prerequisites / Voraussetzungen	Previous lessons in this volume

Professional scenario

Packages are manually renamed latest.zip, so the running source revision cannot be proven.

Core concepts

• S3 transfers generic files between pipeline actions.
• Versioning protects object history.
• KMS controls encrypted access.
• A manifest links commit, build, tests, artifact version, and checksum.

Architecture flow

1. Identify the release input and immutable identity.
2. Select the managed AWS control plane and least-privilege role.
3. Execute build, test, artifact, or deployment work.
4. Collect service events, logs, reports, and runtime metrics.
5. Stop, retry, or roll back according to explicit rules.

Decision matrix

Requirement	Preferred choice	Reason
Generic package	S3	Object artifact
Strong traceability	Manifest and checksum	Proves source and integrity
Retention control	Lifecycle by artifact class	Protect releases, expire temporary data

Failure modes and troubleshooting

• Mutable name is overwritten.
• S3 allows read but KMS denies.
• Lifecycle deletes rollback artifact.

Security and operations

• Use short-lived service roles and least privilege.
• Encrypt artifacts and protect logs from secret exposure.
• Record changes and approvals for audit.

Hands-on lab

Goal / Ziel: Create an encrypted versioned bucket and release manifest.

Tasks

1. Create the smallest safe test architecture.
2. Implement or simulate the main workflow.
3. Introduce one controlled failure.
4. Diagnose it from service evidence.
5. Document cleanup and one improvement.

Validation

• The workflow uses an immutable version.
• A required failure blocks promotion.
• The diagnosis identifies the first failed transition.

Cost control / Kostenkontrolle: Keep resources short lived; read cleanup before starting.

Cleanup

1. Delete pipeline/build/deployment resources.
2. Delete temporary artifacts, images, logs, and roles.

Exam traps

• Using latest as identity.
• One lifecycle rule for all content.

Key takeaways

• S3 transfers generic files between pipeline actions.
• A manifest links commit, build, tests, artifact version, and checksum.
• Decisions must be justified by requirements and failure behavior.

Review questions

1. What is the immutable release identity?
2. Which evidence proves failure or success?
3. What is the safest recovery action?

Answers

1. A version, digest, or uniquely versioned artifact.
2. Service events, logs, reports, health checks, and runtime metrics.
3. Restore the known-good version using the configured rollback path.