DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A data engineer is building a real-time data pipeline using Amazon Kinesis Data Streams with a Lambda consumer. The data volume is 2 MB/s with average record size of 5 KB. The Lambda function processes records and writes to DynamoDB. Occasionally, the Lambda function fails with 'ProvisionedThroughputExceededException' on DynamoDB. What is the best way to handle this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers assume increasing concurrency or switching to KCL will solve throughput issues, but the real problem is handling DynamoDB throttling gracefully without blocking the Kinesis stream, which requires a decoupled retry mechanism like a dead-letter queue.
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
✓
Configure a Lambda destination on failure to send records to an SQS dead-letter queue, and implement retry logic in Lambda.
Configuring a Lambda destination on failure to send unprocessed records to an SQS dead-letter queue, combined with retry logic in the Lambda function, provides a robust mechanism to handle DynamoDB throttling exceptions. This approach decouples the retry handling from the Kinesis stream, preventing the Lambda function from blocking the shard iterator and allowing the pipeline to continue processing other records while failed records are retried or investigated.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Replace Lambda with the Kinesis Client Library (KCL) running on EC2.
Why it's wrong here
KCL still needs to handle DynamoDB throttling.
- ✗
Increase the Lambda function's reserved concurrency to process more records in parallel.
Why it's wrong here
More concurrency increases DynamoDB load, making throttling worse.
- ✗
Use DynamoDB Streams to capture the records and process them asynchronously.
Why it's wrong here
DynamoDB Streams is for changes, not for ingestion errors.
- ✓
Configure a Lambda destination on failure to send records to an SQS dead-letter queue, and implement retry logic in Lambda.
Why this is correct
This handles transient failures without data loss.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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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.