DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company needs to ingest data from a MySQL database into Amazon S3 in near real-time. The database is running on EC2. The data engineer wants to minimize the impact on the source database. Which service should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse AWS Glue's batch JDBC capabilities with streaming ingestion, or assume that a read replica can directly feed data into S3 without an intermediary service like DMS or Kinesis.
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
✓
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication
AWS DMS with ongoing replication (change data capture) is the correct choice because it can continuously replicate changes from a MySQL source database to Amazon S3 with minimal performance impact. DMS uses a transactional log-based approach (MySQL binlog) to capture changes as they occur, avoiding heavy SELECT queries on the source. This enables near real-time ingestion without adding significant load to the production database.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication
Why this is correct
DMS with ongoing replication performs change data capture from the MySQL binary log, streaming inserts, updates and deletes to Amazon S3 continuously. Reading the log rather than polling tables keeps load on the source EC2 database minimal while achieving near real-time ingestion.
- ✗
AWS Glue ETL job with a JDBC connection
Why it's wrong here
A Glue JDBC job runs on a schedule, giving batch extraction rather than near real-time, and full-table reads load the source. It is tempting because Glue handles JDBC sources and S3 targets well, and is correct for periodic batch ingestion where latency of minutes is acceptable.
- ✗
Amazon RDS for MySQL with read replica
Why it's wrong here
A read replica of RDS for MySQL cannot exist here because the source runs on EC2, not RDS. It is tempting because read replicas offload query traffic, which is correct when the source is an RDS instance and you need near-real-time replication.
- ✗
AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT)
Why it's wrong here
SCT converts schemas and stored procedures between engines; it moves no row data into S3 and provides no continuous ingestion. It is tempting because SCT is correct when the goal is heterogeneous database migration, such as MySQL to Aurora PostgreSQL, rather than ongoing replication.
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
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This DEA-C01 question is part of Courseiva's 1,321-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.