The correct answer is Create a gateway VPC endpoint for Amazon S3 within the VPC to enable private connectivity. A gateway VPC endpoint allows traffic between resources in your VPC (such as EC2 instances) and Amazon S3 to stay within the AWS network, without ever traversing the internet. This approach meets the requirement for secure, non-internet-based access to S3 and is fully managed by AWS with no added cost.

The option Deploy a Site-to-Site VPN connection from the VPC to the S3 bucket to enforce private routing is incorrect because S3 is a managed AWS service accessible within the AWS network. VPNs are intended for hybrid connectivity between on-premises networks and AWS, not for connecting to AWS-managed services like S3.

The choice Use a NAT gateway so that EC2 instances can access Amazon S3 without exposing traffic to the internet is misleading. While NAT gateways allow EC2 instances in private subnets to reach the internet, the traffic still routes through the public internet. This does not satisfy the requirement to avoid internet traversal.

The option Create a private hosted zone in Amazon Route 53 to redirect traffic privately to the S3 bucket is not applicable because private hosted zones are used for custom DNS resolution within a VPC, not for routing or securely accessing AWS services like S3.

This question is important because it tests knowledge of how to implement secure, private connections to AWS services. A key trick is recognizing that gateway VPC endpoints are the correct solution for services like S3 and DynamoDB, where private access from within a VPC is needed without using public IPs or internet gateways.

The difficulty in this question lies in ruling out seemingly valid options like NAT gateways or VPNs, which may provide access but not in a way that avoids internet routing as required.

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