DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A company uses Amazon EMR to run Spark jobs on a transient cluster. The jobs process data from S3 and write results back to S3. The team wants to reduce costs by optimizing the cluster. Which action should the team take?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse cost optimization with performance tuning, leading them to choose larger instances (Option B) or consistency features (Option C), when the real cost lever for transient workloads is leveraging Spot pricing for ephemeral compute.
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
✓
Use Spot Instances for the task nodes.
Using Spot Instances for task nodes in a transient EMR cluster significantly reduces compute costs because Spot Instances are spare AWS EC2 capacity offered at up to 90% discount compared to On-Demand. Since transient clusters are terminated after job completion, the risk of Spot Instance interruptions is mitigated—the job can simply be retried on a new cluster if needed. This directly addresses the cost optimization goal without sacrificing job functionality.
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 Spot Instances for the task nodes.
Why this is correct
Spot instances are cheaper than on-demand.
- ✗
Increase the number of core nodes and use larger instance types.
Why it's wrong here
Larger instances increase costs.
- ✗
Enable EMRFS consistent view.
Why it's wrong here
Consistent view does not reduce costs.
- ✗
Terminate the cluster after each job and manually restart it for the next job.
Why it's wrong here
Transient clusters already terminate automatically.
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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