DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
This DEA-C01 practice question tests your understanding of data ingestion and transformation. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company runs a nightly batch ETL job using AWS Glue to transform data from Amazon RDS for MySQL to Amazon S3. The job reads 100 tables and writes Parquet files partitioned by date. Recently, the job started failing with 'ThrottlingException' from the RDS database. The data volume has increased, and the Glue job is reading large tables without any filtering. The job uses a single Glue job with multiple Spark executors. The engineer needs to reduce the load on the RDS database while maintaining the same processing time. What should the engineer do?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Modify the Glue job to use a JDBC connection with a WHERE clause to read only the latest partition.
Option D is correct because using a JDBC connection with a WHERE clause to filter data by date reduces the amount of data read from RDS, reducing throttling. Option A is wrong because increasing DPUs would increase parallelism and potentially increase load on RDS. Option B is wrong because DMS is a migration tool, not for regular ETL. Option C is wrong because reading all data into S3 first does not reduce load on RDS; the initial read still causes throttling.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Use AWS DMS to continuously replicate data to S3 and then run Glue on the S3 data.
Why it's wrong here
DMS would still read from RDS and could cause throttling.
✗
Change the job to read all data from RDS into a staging table in S3 first, then transform.
Why it's wrong here
The initial read still causes load on RDS.
✗
Increase the number of DPUs to process data faster.
Why it's wrong here
More DPUs increase parallelism, which may increase load on RDS.
✓
Modify the Glue job to use a JDBC connection with a WHERE clause to read only the latest partition.
Why this is correct
Filtering reduces data read from RDS, reducing throttling.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
→Underline the problem statement mentally.
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which DEA-C01 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
Data Ingestion and Transformation — This question tests Data Ingestion and Transformation — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Modify the Glue job to use a JDBC connection with a WHERE clause to read only the latest partition. — Option D is correct because using a JDBC connection with a WHERE clause to filter data by date reduces the amount of data read from RDS, reducing throttling. Option A is wrong because increasing DPUs would increase parallelism and potentially increase load on RDS. Option B is wrong because DMS is a migration tool, not for regular ETL. Option C is wrong because reading all data into S3 first does not reduce load on RDS; the initial read still causes throttling.
What should I do if I get this DEA-C01 question wrong?
Identify which DEA-C01 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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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.
Question Discussion
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