DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company uses AWS Glue to process data in Amazon S3. The Glue job fails with an error indicating that the partition keys in the catalog do not match the actual S3 partition structure. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse a partition metadata mismatch with other common Glue errors like IAM permissions or encryption issues, but the error message explicitly references partition keys, not access or decryption problems.
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
✓
The Glue Data Catalog partition metadata is outdated after the S3 structure changed
The Glue Data Catalog stores partition metadata separately from the actual S3 partition layout. When the S3 partition structure changes (e.g., new partitions are added or existing ones are renamed) without updating the catalog, the Glue job reads stale partition metadata, leading to a mismatch error. The job fails because it expects partitions based on the catalog, not the live S3 structure.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The IAM role does not have permissions to read the S3 data
Why it's wrong here
This would cause an access denied error, not a partition mismatch.
- ✗
The data files are encrypted with SSE-KMS
Why it's wrong here
Encryption does not cause partition key mismatch errors.
- ✗
The table name in the catalog is different from the one used in the job
Why it's wrong here
This would result in a 'table not found' error, not partition mismatch.
- ✓
The Glue Data Catalog partition metadata is outdated after the S3 structure changed
Why this is correct
The catalog must be refreshed by running a crawler to reflect S3 changes.
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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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.