DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company uses AWS Glue ETL jobs to transform data from Amazon RDS to Amazon S3 daily. The job recently started failing with memory errors. The data volume has grown 3x in the past month. Which change should the data engineer make to resolve the issue?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse scaling the source database (RDS) with scaling the ETL compute (Glue), or assume that output partitioning (S3) will fix an in-memory processing error, when the actual solution is to increase the compute resources allocated to the Glue job.
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 DPUs allocated to the Glue job
The Glue job is failing with memory errors due to a 3x increase in data volume. Increasing the number of DPUs (Data Processing Units) allocated to the job provides more memory and compute resources, directly addressing the out-of-memory condition without changing the job logic or architecture.
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 size of the Amazon RDS instance
Why it's wrong here
Does not address memory issues in the Glue job; RDS might not be the bottleneck.
- ✗
Switch the Glue job type from Python Shell to Spark
Why it's wrong here
Glue ETL jobs already use Spark; Python Shell is a different job type.
- ✗
Partition the output data in Amazon S3 by date
Why it's wrong here
Affects storage/query, not Glue job memory.
- ✓
Increase the number of DPUs allocated to the Glue job
Why this is correct
More DPUs provide more memory to handle larger data volumes.
Visual reference
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 |
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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.