DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company needs to ingest real-time sensor data from thousands of IoT devices into Amazon S3, with a latency of less than 1 minute. The data must be transformed (e.g., convert to Parquet) before landing in S3. Which combination of services is MOST cost-effective?
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 to Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose to S3.
The most cost-effective because Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose directly ingests data from Kinesis Data Streams, can perform transformations (e.g., convert to Parquet) using built-in or Lambda functions, and delivers to S3 with low latency (under 1 minute). Option A is incorrect because AWS Lambda, while capable of transformation, does not scale cost-effectively for thousands of devices due to per-invocation costs and concurrency limits. Option B is incorrect because Kinesis Data Analytics is designed for complex stream processing with SQL, not simple transformations, and adds unnecessary cost. Option C is incorrect because AWS Glue streaming ETL is more suited for near-real-time batch processing and can incur higher costs and latency for high-throughput ingestion.
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 Kinesis Data Streams to AWS Lambda to S3.
Why it's wrong here
Lambda can be costly for high-frequency invocations from many devices.
- ✗
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams to Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics to S3.
Why it's wrong here
KDA is for complex analytics, not simple transformation; adds cost.
- ✗
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams to AWS Glue streaming ETL to S3.
Why it's wrong here
Glue streaming ETL is more expensive and designed for batch-oriented streaming.
- ✓
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams to Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose to S3.
Why this is correct
Firehose can transform and deliver with low latency, cost-effective for high throughput.
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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Same concept, more angles
2 more ways this is tested on DEA-C01
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company needs to ingest streaming data from multiple sources and store it in Amazon S3. The data volume is up to 5 GB per hour. What is the MOST cost-effective ingestion service?
easy- A.AWS Glue
- B.Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
- ✓ C.Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose
- D.AWS Lambda
Why C: Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose is the most cost-effective service for ingesting streaming data into Amazon S3 at 5 GB/hour. It is fully managed, automatically scales, and charges only for data ingested (per GB), with no upfront provisioning. While Amazon Kinesis Data Streams (KDS) may have lower throughput cost for steady loads, it requires manual shard management and typically needs additional components (e.g., Lambda functions) to deliver data to S3, increasing operational overhead and total cost. AWS Glue is a batch ETL service, not designed for streaming. AWS Lambda is a compute service and would require custom code and scaling logic, making it more expensive and complex for this use case. Therefore, Kinesis Data Firehose provides the simplest and most cost-effective solution for streaming data ingestion directly to S3.
Variation 2. A company wants to ingest real-time data from a social media API into Amazon S3 for analysis. The API provides data as JSON records. Which AWS service is best suited for this ingestion?
easy- A.AWS Glue
- ✓ B.Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose
- C.Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
- D.Amazon DataZone
Why B: Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose is the best choice because it is a fully managed service designed to ingest real-time streaming data, such as JSON records from a social media API, and automatically load it into Amazon S3 with optional data transformation and compression. It handles scaling, buffering, and delivery without requiring custom code or infrastructure management, making it ideal for this use case.
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.