This DEA-C01 practice question tests your understanding of data operations and support. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 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?
Use Spot Instances for the task nodes.
Spot instances are cheaper than on-demand.
Increase the number of core nodes and use larger instance types.
Why wrong: Larger instances increase costs.
Enable EMRFS consistent view.
Why wrong: Consistent view does not reduce costs.
Terminate the cluster after each job and manually restart it for the next job.
Why wrong: Transient clusters already terminate automatically.
Answer choices
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.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
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.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates 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.
Detailed technical explanation
Under the hood, Spot Instances in EMR are managed via the EC2 Spot service, which can reclaim capacity with a 2-minute termination notice. For transient clusters, the EMR step execution model allows you to configure a 'maximum failure retries' parameter—if a Spot interruption occurs, the cluster fails and can be automatically relaunched by a Step Functions or Lambda workflow. In practice, using Spot for task nodes (which are stateless and don't hold HDFS data) while keeping the master node On-Demand ensures job resilience at minimal cost.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
What to study next
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FAQ
Data Operations and Support — This question tests Data Operations and Support — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: 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.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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.
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