DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A company runs an Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL database and wants to capture change data (inserts, updates, deletes) to stream into Amazon Kinesis Data Streams for real-time processing. Which AWS service should be used to capture the changes directly from the database?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse scheduled polling (Glue) or file-based agents (Kinesis Agent) with true CDC, failing to recognize that only DMS ongoing replication can stream row-level changes directly from the database transaction log in real time.
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 Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication
AWS DMS with ongoing replication (change data capture) is the correct service because it can continuously capture insert, update, and delete operations from the PostgreSQL transaction logs (WAL) and stream them to a Kinesis Data Streams endpoint. This allows real-time processing without modifying the source database or requiring application-level triggers.
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 RDS automated snapshots
Why it's wrong here
Automated snapshots are periodic full-volume backups, so they capture no row-level insert, update or delete events and cannot feed Kinesis. They are the right choice for point-in-time restore and disaster recovery of the RDS instance.
- ✗
AWS Glue ETL job scheduled to run every minute
Why it's wrong here
A scheduled Glue job performs batch reads, so it cannot capture inserts, updates and deletes continuously; it only sees row states at run time. Glue suits periodic bulk transformation into S3 or a warehouse, not change data capture streaming into Kinesis.
- ✗
Amazon Kinesis Agent
Why it's wrong here
Kinesis Agent tails log files on a host and publishes records to Kinesis; it cannot read PostgreSQL's write-ahead log, so it never observes row-level changes. It is correct for streaming application or web server logs from EC2 instances.
- ✓
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication
Why this is correct
DMS ongoing replication reads the PostgreSQL write-ahead log via logical replication slots, capturing inserts, updates and deletes as they occur and streaming them to Kinesis. This satisfies the requirement to capture change data directly from the database without application changes.
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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.