DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company is building a data lake on S3. They have a large volume of CSV files (hundreds of GB) in a source bucket. They need to convert them to Parquet, partition by date, and ensure the data is encrypted at rest with SSE-KMS. The pipeline must be triggered automatically when new files arrive. Which THREE steps should be part of the solution? (Choose THREE.)
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse batch conversion tools like Athena CTAS with event-driven pipelines, or assume Kinesis Firehose can process existing S3 files, when in fact Firehose only ingests streaming data and cannot read from S3 buckets.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Configure S3 Event Notification to send events to an SQS queue
S3 Event Notifications can be configured to send events to an SQS queue when new CSV files arrive. This decouples the ingestion pipeline, allowing the Glue job to poll the queue for new file notifications and trigger processing without tight coupling or polling the S3 bucket directly. SQS provides reliable, scalable message delivery that can trigger downstream ETL workflows.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Configure S3 Event Notification to send events to an SQS queue
Why this is correct
SQS can buffer events and trigger a Lambda or Step Functions workflow.
- ✗
Use Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose to ingest new files
Why it's wrong here
Firehose is for streaming data, not for processing existing CSV files.
- ✓
Create an AWS Glue ETL job that converts to Parquet and partitions by date
Why this is correct
Glue ETL can handle the conversion and partitioning.
- ✗
Use Amazon Athena CTAS query to convert files in batch
Why it's wrong here
CTAS is not event-driven; it requires manual or scheduled execution.
- ✓
Configure the Glue job to use a KMS key for server-side encryption in S3
Why this is correct
The job should write with SSE-KMS enabled via the S3 client configuration.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DEA-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DEA-C01 exam.