DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company needs to ingest data from a self-managed Apache Kafka cluster running on EC2 into Amazon S3. The data must be delivered in near real-time. Which AWS service is BEST suited for this task?
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
✓
Use an AWS Glue streaming ETL job that reads from the Kafka cluster and writes to S3.
AWS Glue streaming ETL jobs can connect directly to an Apache Kafka cluster (including self-managed) as a source and write data to Amazon S3 in near real-time, making it a fully managed and suitable solution. Option A (Amazon MSK) is a managed Kafka service but does not directly ingest into S3; Option B (S3 Transfer Acceleration) only accelerates uploads, not ingestion; Option C (Kinesis Data Streams) adds unnecessary complexity as an intermediary.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use Amazon MSK to replicate the Kafka cluster and then use a connector to S3.
Why it's wrong here
MSK is for managing Kafka, not for ingesting from self-managed Kafka.
- ✗
Use Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration to speed up the transfer from Kafka brokers to S3.
Why it's wrong here
Transfer Acceleration does not help with data ingestion from Kafka.
- ✗
Use Amazon Kinesis Data Streams as an intermediary to buffer data before writing to S3.
Why it's wrong here
Kinesis Data Streams is unsuitable because it requires a separate producer application or Kafka Connect connector to ingest data from Apache Kafka, introducing an additional integration layer and operational overhead for a direct Kafka-to-S3 transfer. This option is tempting as Kinesis Data Streams is a real-time streaming service, and it would be appropriate for ingesting data from custom applications or IoT devices that directly publish to Kinesis, or when complex real-time processing is needed within the Kinesis ecosystem before data is persisted to S3.
- ✓
Use an AWS Glue streaming ETL job that reads from the Kafka cluster and writes to S3.
Why this is correct
Glue supports streaming from Kafka and can write to S3.
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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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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