DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A company runs a daily batch processing job on Amazon EMR that reads data from Amazon S3 and writes results back to S3. The job takes longer than expected. The engineer wants to monitor the job's resource utilization. Which AWS service should be used to collect and visualize metrics such as CPU and memory usage of the EMR cluster's nodes?
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 CloudWatch with the CloudWatch Agent installed on the EMR nodes.
Amazon CloudWatch with the CloudWatch Agent installed on EMR nodes can collect CPU, memory, and other system-level metrics, which can be visualized in CloudWatch dashboards. Option A is incorrect because AWS Config records configuration changes, not resource utilization. Option B is incorrect because Amazon Athena is a query service for data in S3, not a monitoring service. Option D is incorrect because AWS CloudTrail logs API calls, not performance metrics.
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 Config to record configuration changes in the EMR cluster.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config tracks resource configuration, not performance metrics.
- ✗
Amazon Athena to query EMR job logs stored in S3.
Why it's wrong here
Athena can query logs, but does not provide real-time resource utilization metrics.
- ✓
Amazon CloudWatch with the CloudWatch Agent installed on the EMR nodes.
Why this is correct
CloudWatch can collect CPU, memory, and disk metrics from EC2 instances (EMR nodes) via the CloudWatch Agent.
- ✗
AWS CloudTrail to log API calls made by the EMR job.
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail logs API calls, not resource utilization metrics.
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.