DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A company uses Amazon Kinesis Data Streams to ingest real-time clickstream data. A Lambda function processes each record. Recently, the Lambda function has been failing with 'ProvisionedThroughputExceededException' when writing results to a DynamoDB table. The data engineer has already increased the DynamoDB write capacity. What else can the engineer do to resolve the issue?
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
✓
Increase the number of shards in the Kinesis stream.
Increasing the number of shards in the Kinesis stream increases the number of concurrent Lambda invocations, distributing the write load across more Lambda functions and reducing the number of writes per second to DynamoDB from each invocation. This helps mitigate ProvisionedThroughputExceededException. Option A is incorrect: increasing Lambda memory does not directly affect DynamoDB write throttling. Option B is incorrect: increasing DynamoDB read capacity does not help with write throttling. Option C is incorrect: decreasing the batch size to 1 reduces the number of records per invocation, but since each shard still invokes Lambda, it may increase the number of invocations and potentially increase the write frequency, worsening the throttling.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the Lambda function memory.
Why it's wrong here
Memory affects CPU, not DynamoDB write throttling.
- ✗
Increase the DynamoDB read capacity units.
Why it's wrong here
Read capacity does not affect write throughput.
- ✗
Decrease the Lambda batch size to 1.
Why it's wrong here
Smaller batches may increase per-record overhead and throttling.
- ✓
Increase the number of shards in the Kinesis stream.
Why this is correct
More shards distribute the load across more Lambda invocations.
Visual reference
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on DEA-C01
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company uses Amazon Kinesis Data Streams to ingest real-time clickstream data. The data is consumed by an AWS Lambda function that processes records and stores results in Amazon DynamoDB. Recently, the Lambda function has been failing with ProvisionedThroughputExceededException errors. Which action should the data engineer take to resolve this issue?
easy- ✓ A.Enable auto scaling on the DynamoDB table to handle increased write capacity.
- B.Reduce the number of shards in the Kinesis stream to lower the ingestion rate.
- C.Increase the batch size in the Lambda event source mapping to process more records per invocation.
- D.Configure the Lambda function to discard records that cause throttling errors.
Why A: Enabling DynamoDB auto scaling dynamically adjusts throughput to match demand. Option B is wrong because reducing the number of shards would lower the ingestion rate, which is not appropriate for handling high traffic. Option C is wrong because increasing the batch size in the Lambda event source mapping would process more records per invocation, but the underlying issue is DynamoDB throughput, not batch size. Option D is wrong because discarding records that cause throttling would lead to data loss.
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.