DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company uses AWS Glue to transform data stored in Amazon S3. During a run, the job fails with a 'OutOfMemoryError' in the Spark executor. The job processes 2 TB of parquet files using 10 DPUs. The data is evenly distributed across partitions. Which action would MOST likely resolve the issue without impacting the job logic?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse memory issues with I/O bottlenecks or data skew, leading them to choose repartitioning or format changes, but the direct fix for insufficient executor memory is to increase DPUs.
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 OutOfMemoryError in the Spark executor indicates that the available memory per executor is insufficient for the data being processed. Increasing the number of DPUs allocated to the Glue job increases the total memory and compute resources available, allowing Spark to handle the 2 TB dataset without changing the job logic.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable S3 request rate increase to speed up data reading.
Why it's wrong here
Does not affect executor memory.
- ✓
Increase the number of DPUs allocated to the Glue job.
Why this is correct
More DPUs increase total memory available.
- ✗
Repartition the data to a larger number of partitions.
Why it's wrong here
May help parallelism but not memory per executor if DPUs unchanged.
- ✗
Change the input format from Parquet to Snappy-compressed CSV.
Why it's wrong here
Format change does not fix memory; Snappy may be similar.
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.