DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company uses AWS Glue to run ETL jobs daily. The data is stored in S3 as Parquet files partitioned by date. Recently, jobs have failed with the error 'No such file or directory' for certain partitions. What is the MOST likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse file-level permission errors (Option D) with missing directory errors, but S3 returns distinct HTTP status codes (403 vs 404) that map to different error messages in Spark/Glue.
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
✓
A partition folder was deleted or not created by the upstream process.
The error 'No such file or directory' indicates that the Glue ETL job is attempting to read a specific S3 partition path that does not exist. Since the data is partitioned by date and the job runs daily, the most likely cause is that the upstream process failed to create or accidentally deleted the partition folder for that date. Glue's dynamic frame or Spark DataFrame will throw this error when it tries to list or read files from a missing prefix.
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 schema has changed and Glue cannot parse the data.
Why it's wrong here
Schema evolution causes parsing errors, not missing files.
- ✓
A partition folder was deleted or not created by the upstream process.
Why this is correct
Missing partition leads to 'No such file or directory'.
- ✗
The files are compressed with an unsupported codec.
Why it's wrong here
Unsupported compression causes read errors, not missing files.
- ✗
The IAM role does not have s3:GetObject permission.
Why it's wrong here
Would cause access denied, not missing file.
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.