DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company is ingesting streaming data from a fleet of weather sensors. Each sensor sends a JSON payload every second. The data is used for real-time dashboarding and also archived to S3. The pipeline should handle sudden bursts of data without data loss. Which architecture meets these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
The DEA-C01 exam often tests the misconception that Kinesis Data Firehose can be used as a standalone ingestion service without a buffer, but the trap here is that Firehose requires a buffer (minimum 60 seconds or 1 MB) to function, and without it, data would be lost during bursts, making Option C an incorrect choice.
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
✓
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams -> AWS Lambda for dashboard -> Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose -> S3
Kinesis Data Streams provides durable, scalable ingestion that can handle sudden bursts of data without loss, while Lambda processes records for real-time dashboarding and Kinesis Data Firehose reliably buffers and archives data to S3. This decoupled architecture ensures no data is lost even during traffic spikes, as Kinesis Data Streams retains data for up to 365 days and Firehose can buffer incoming records before writing to S3.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon EC2 with Apache Kafka -> S3
Why it's wrong here
Requires managing EC2; not serverless.
- ✓
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams -> AWS Lambda for dashboard -> Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose -> S3
Why this is correct
Streams provide buffer, Firehose delivers to S3, Lambda processes for dashboard.
- ✗
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose directly with no buffer
Why it's wrong here
Firehose can lose data if throttled without a stream.
- ✗
Amazon SQS -> AWS Lambda -> S3
Why it's wrong here
SQS is not designed for high-throughput streaming.
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.