A serverless application was deployed into a production VPC using AWS CloudFormation. The stack includes a Lambda function, a DynamoDB table, and an API Gateway. The administrator needs to delete the CloudFormation stack but keep the DynamoDB table intact. What should be done before deleting the stack?

The correct approach is to apply a Retain deletion policy to the DynamoDB logical resource in the CloudFormation template. This policy ensures that when the CloudFormation stack is deleted, the specified resource (the DynamoDB table in this case) is not deleted and remains in your AWS account. This is a standard and intended use of CloudFormation deletion policies for preserving data. Applying a Snapshot deletion policy is incorrect because it would create a snapshot of the DynamoDB table before deletion, but the table itself would still be deleted. Turning on termination protection for the CloudFormation stack is incorrect because it prevents the stack from being deleted, not individual resources within it. Modifying the application's IAM policy to deny dynamodb:DeleteTable is an indirect and unreliable method; CloudFormation operates with its own service role permissions, and this approach doesn't guarantee the table's preservation during a stack deletion.