DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A company wants to ingest data from a SaaS application into Amazon S3. The SaaS application supports streaming data via HTTP POST requests. The data volume is approximately 100 MB per hour, and the company needs to store the raw data in S3 for archival and later analysis. Which approach is the most cost-effective and operationally efficient?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is that candidates may incorrectly believe Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose can directly accept HTTP POST data. While Firehose is a great service for streaming data to S3, it does not support HTTP as a source. The correct serverless pattern for ingesting HTTP POST data is API Gateway + Lambda.
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
✓
Use Amazon API Gateway to create a REST API that receives the data and triggers an AWS Lambda function to store it in S3.
Amazon API Gateway combined with AWS Lambda is the most appropriate and cost-effective approach for this use case. API Gateway provides a fully managed HTTP endpoint that can receive the HTTP POST requests from the SaaS application. The data is then passed to a Lambda function, which writes the raw data directly to Amazon S3. This serverless architecture eliminates the need to manage servers, scales automatically, and incurs cost only when data is processed. Option B is incorrect because Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose does not natively support HTTP endpoints as a source; it can ingest data from Kinesis Data Streams, AWS IoT, or custom agents, but not directly via HTTP POST.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Launch a t3.nano EC2 instance that runs a script to receive HTTP POST requests and write to S3.
Why it's wrong here
Launching a t3.nano EC2 instance requires managing the server, patching, and scaling. It is less operationally efficient than serverless options and may not be as cost-effective at low volumes due to fixed running costs.
- ✗
Use Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose with HTTP endpoint as the source, and configure S3 as the destination.
Why it's wrong here
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose does not natively accept HTTP POST as a source. It integrates with services like Kinesis Data Streams, CloudWatch Logs, or custom agents, but not directly via HTTP.
- ✗
Use Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) to queue the HTTP POST data and have an AWS Lambda function read from SQS and write to S3.
Why it's wrong here
Using SQS with Lambda requires an HTTP endpoint to send the POST data to SQS, which would still need API Gateway or another mechanism. This adds complexity compared to directly using API Gateway + Lambda.
- ✓
Use Amazon API Gateway to create a REST API that receives the data and triggers an AWS Lambda function to store it in S3.
Why this is correct
API Gateway provides a fully managed HTTP endpoint to receive the POST data, then triggers a Lambda function that writes to S3. This is serverless, cost-effective for low volumes, and operationally efficient.
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
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every DEA-C01 question from scratch — 1,711 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.