DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company uses AWS Glue to process streaming data from Amazon Kinesis Data Streams. The job fails intermittently with a 'MemoryError'. What is the MOST likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse memory errors with throttling or connectivity issues, leading them to pick insufficient shards (Option D) or cross-region problems (Option C), when the root cause is almost always an undersized worker type for the data volume.
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 job worker type is too small for the data volume
The 'MemoryError' in AWS Glue indicates that the worker type allocated to the job does not have sufficient memory to process the data volume. Glue workers (Standard, G.1X, G.2X) have fixed memory allocations (e.g., 16 GB for Standard), and if the streaming data from Kinesis exceeds this, the job fails. Increasing the worker type or the number of workers resolves this.
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 Glue job worker type is too small for the data volume
Why this is correct
Small worker type leads to out-of-memory errors when data volume exceeds capacity.
- ✗
The Glue job uses too many DynamicFrames
Why it's wrong here
DynamicFrames are memory-efficient; number of DynamicFrames is not a direct cause.
- ✗
The S3 output bucket is in a different region
Why it's wrong here
Cross-region access causes latency but not memory errors.
- ✗
The Kinesis stream has insufficient shards
Why it's wrong here
Insufficient shards cause throttling, not memory errors.
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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.