DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A company runs a critical data pipeline using Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose to deliver data to Amazon S3. The data is compressed with GZIP and partitioned by year/month/day/hour. Recently, the delivery to S3 has been failing with 'Rate exceeded' errors. The Firehose delivery stream has a buffer size of 128 MB and buffer interval of 60 seconds. What is the most effective way to resolve this issue?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates mistakenly think reducing buffer size or interval will speed up delivery, but in reality, it increases request frequency and worsens S3 throttling, while increasing buffers is the correct way to reduce request rate.
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
✓
Increase the buffer size to 256 MB and buffer interval to 120 seconds.
The 'Rate exceeded' error indicates that Kinesis Data Firehose is sending requests to S3 at a rate that exceeds the S3 bucket's request rate limits for PUT operations. Increasing the buffer size to 256 MB and the buffer interval to 120 seconds allows Firehose to accumulate more data before each S3 PUT request, reducing the number of requests per second and staying within S3's 3,500 PUT requests per second limit per prefix. This directly addresses the throttling issue without changing the data volume.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Transition objects to S3 Glacier after 30 days.
Why it's wrong here
Lifecycle policies do not reduce the current request rate.
- ✗
Decrease the buffer size to 64 MB and buffer interval to 30 seconds.
Why it's wrong here
Smaller buffers increase the number of requests, worsening the issue.
- ✓
Increase the buffer size to 256 MB and buffer interval to 120 seconds.
Why this is correct
Larger buffers reduce the number of S3 PUT requests, alleviating throttling.
- ✗
Enable server-side encryption on the S3 bucket.
Why it's wrong here
Encryption does not affect request rate limits.
Visual reference
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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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.