DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company uses Kinesis Data Streams to ingest clickstream data. They notice that the data processing latency increases as the number of shards grows. What is the most likely cause and solution?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates assume more shards always improve performance, but the DEA-C01 exam tests the understanding that read-side latency scales inversely with the number of consumers relative to shards, not with shard count alone.
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
✓
Reduce the number of shards or increase the number of consumers.
As the number of shards increases, the total throughput of the stream increases, but each shard has a fixed limit of 5 read transactions per second. If the number of consumers remains constant, each consumer must poll more shards sequentially, increasing the per-record processing latency. Reducing the number of shards or adding more consumers distributes the polling load, reducing the time each consumer spends waiting for shard-level throttling.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Reduce the number of shards or increase the number of consumers.
Why this is correct
Balancing shards and consumers ensures each shard is processed, reducing latency.
- ✗
Increase the Kinesis Producer Library (KPL) batch size.
Why it's wrong here
Batch size affects producer, not consumer processing latency.
- ✗
Use enhanced fan-out to allow multiple consumers per shard.
Why it's wrong here
Enhanced fan-out is for multiple consumers, but the issue is single consumer with many shards.
- ✗
Increase the number of shards to handle more data.
Why it's wrong here
More shards with the same number of consumers leads to more idle shards and increased latency.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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