DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company needs to ingest data from multiple SaaS applications (Salesforce, Marketo) and load it into Amazon Redshift. The data must be transformed before loading. Which AWS service should be used to build the ingestion pipelines?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse Amazon AppFlow's simplicity for ETL capability, but AppFlow lacks the advanced transformation and orchestration features needed for complex data pipelines, making Glue the correct choice despite AppFlow's direct Redshift integration.
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 Glue (crawlers and ETL jobs)
AWS Glue is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed ETL service that can connect to various data sources (including SaaS applications via JDBC or custom connectors), transform the data using Apache Spark or Python scripts, and load it into Amazon Redshift. Glue crawlers can catalog the source schemas, and Glue ETL jobs handle the transformation logic required before loading into Redshift, making it ideal for building ingestion pipelines from multiple SaaS sources.
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)
Why it's wrong here
DMS is for database migrations, not SaaS applications.
- ✗
AWS Data Pipeline
Why it's wrong here
AWS Data Pipeline lacks native connectors for SaaS sources such as Salesforce and Marketo, so it cannot directly ingest from those APIs; the correct service, Amazon AppFlow, provides built-in SaaS connectors. Data Pipeline is tempting because it handles scheduled data movement and transformation for databases and S3, making it a correct choice when sources are relational databases or flat files rather than SaaS endpoints.
- ✗
Amazon AppFlow
Why it's wrong here
AppFlow is for data ingestion from SaaS but lacks transformation capabilities beyond simple mappings.
- ✓
AWS Glue (crawlers and ETL jobs)
Why this is correct
AWS Glue can connect to SaaS sources via JDBC and perform complex transformations.
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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.