DEA-C01 Data Store Management Practice Question
A company wants to use Amazon Redshift Spectrum to query data in Amazon S3. The data is in Parquet format and partitioned by date. Which step is required to enable Redshift Spectrum?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often assume Redshift Spectrum requires a separate cluster or that data must be loaded into Redshift, confusing Spectrum with traditional Redshift ingestion methods like COPY or CTAS.
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
✓
Create an external schema and external table in the AWS Glue Data Catalog.
Redshift Spectrum allows querying data directly in Amazon S3 without loading it into Redshift. To use Spectrum, you must define an external schema and external table in the AWS Glue Data Catalog (or an external Hive metastore) that points to the S3 location and specifies the Parquet format and partition structure. This enables Redshift to read the data in place using the Spectrum engine.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Load the data into Redshift tables using the COPY command.
Why it's wrong here
Redshift Spectrum queries S3 data directly through an external schema and external tables, so loading via COPY into Redshift tables is unnecessary and defeats the purpose. COPY is correct when data must reside in Redshift-managed storage for local queries, not for querying external S3 objects in place.
- ✓
Create an external schema and external table in the AWS Glue Data Catalog.
Why this is correct
Redshift Spectrum queries S3 data through external tables registered in the AWS Glue Data Catalog, which you reference via an external schema in the Redshift cluster. This is the mandatory configuration step enabling Spectrum to read the partitioned Parquet data.
- ✗
Create a separate Redshift Spectrum cluster.
Why it's wrong here
Spectrum runs within an existing Redshift cluster; no separate dedicated cluster is provisioned. The required step is creating an external schema referencing the S3 bucket and an IAM role. A separate cluster would be considered only for isolating Spectrum workloads, which the scenario does not require.
- ✗
Copy the data from S3 to Redshift-managed storage.
Why it's wrong here
Spectrum reads Parquet files directly from S3, so copying data into Redshift-managed storage is redundant and bypasses the external table mechanism entirely. That copy approach suits workloads needing local distribution and sort keys for performance, not federated queries against partitioned S3 data.
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
This DEA-C01 question is part of Courseiva's 1,321-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam 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.