DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A data engineer is designing a data ingestion pipeline to load data from an on-premises Oracle database to Amazon S3. The pipeline should capture changes in near real-time (within minutes) and minimize impact on the source database. The source table has a 'last_modified' timestamp column. Which service combination would meet these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates assume a 'last_modified' timestamp column enables easy CDC via polling (options B, D), but the question tests that true near real-time CDC with minimal source impact requires reading database redo logs, not querying the table, and that services like Kinesis or Glue cannot perform log-based CDC without additional custom logic.
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
✓
AWS DMS with a replication task in CDC mode, writing to S3 in Parquet format.
AWS DMS with a replication task in CDC (Change Data Capture) mode is the correct choice because it continuously reads the Oracle redo logs to capture near real-time changes (within seconds to minutes) with minimal impact on the source database. It can directly write to S3 in Parquet format, meeting the requirement for low-latency ingestion without full table scans.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
AWS DMS with a replication task in CDC mode, writing to S3 in Parquet format.
Why this is correct
DMS CDC captures minimal changes and writes to S3 with low latency.
- ✗
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose with a Lambda function that queries Oracle.
Why it's wrong here
Firehose cannot directly connect to Oracle; requires custom solution.
- ✗
AWS Data Pipeline with a periodic SQL query activity to copy full table snapshots.
Why it's wrong here
Full snapshots are not near real-time and impact source.
- ✗
AWS Glue with a JDBC connection to Oracle, running a crawler every 5 minutes.
Why it's wrong here
Glue crawlers are for schema discovery, not CDC. A Glue ETL job would be batch and may impact source.
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
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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on DEA-C01
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A data engineer needs to ingest data from a relational database (MySQL) into Amazon S3 for analytics. The database is 500 GB and the job must run daily with incremental updates. Which AWS service is BEST suited for this task?
easy- A.Amazon EMR with Apache Sqoop.
- B.Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose with a database source.
- ✓ C.AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with a replication task.
- D.AWS Glue ETL job with a JDBC connection.
Why C: AWS DMS with a replication task is the best choice because it is specifically designed for continuous, incremental data replication from relational databases like MySQL to Amazon S3. DMS supports ongoing replication (change data capture) to capture incremental changes without custom scripting, and it can handle the initial 500 GB load efficiently. Other services either lack native incremental support or require additional configuration for this use case.
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.