DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company needs to ingest data from an on-premises database to Amazon S3 with minimal impact on the source database. The data volume is several TB. Which AWS service is best suited for this task?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse network acceleration services (Direct Connect, Transfer Acceleration) or offline transfer devices (Snowball) with database-specific migration tools, overlooking that DMS is the only option that directly reads from a database with minimal impact via CDC.
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)
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) is best suited because it can continuously replicate data from an on-premises database to Amazon S3 with minimal impact on the source. DMS uses change data capture (CDC) to capture only incremental changes after an initial full load, avoiding heavy read loads on the source database. This makes it ideal for migrating several TB of data while keeping the source operational.
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 Direct Connect
Why it's wrong here
AWS Direct Connect provides a dedicated private network link, but it does not perform database extraction or replication to Amazon S3. It is tempting because it reduces network cost and latency for sustained transfers, and would be correct if the task were establishing connectivity rather than migrating several TB of database data.
- ✗
AWS Snowball Edge
Why it's wrong here
Snowball Edge suits bulk offline transfer where network bandwidth is the bottleneck, but it copies a point-in-time snapshot rather than ongoing change data capture, so it cannot continuously replicate an active database with minimal source impact. It would be correct for one-off migration of many petabytes with poor connectivity.
- ✓
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)
Why this is correct
AWS DMS performs a one-time full load plus ongoing replication by reading from the source via a replication instance, using log-based change capture rather than querying application tables. This minimises load on the on-premises database, satisfying the minimal-impact constraint for multi-terabyte ingestion into Amazon S3.
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Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration
Why it's wrong here
Transfer Acceleration speeds uploads into S3 over long distances using edge locations, but it requires data already extracted and pushed from the source, adding read load to the on-premises database. It is correct for accelerating client uploads to S3, not for low-impact database ingestion.
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 |
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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.