DEA-C01 Data Store Management Practice Question
A data engineer is designing an Amazon DynamoDB table for an order-processing application. The table uses a partition key of order_id and a sort key of order_date. The application needs to retrieve all orders for a specific customer within a date range, and the queries must be efficient at scale. The engineer must choose a design that supports these access patterns without full table scans. What should the engineer do?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse local secondary indexes with global secondary indexes, because a local secondary index cannot use a different partition key from the base table.
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 a global secondary index with customer_id as the partition key and order_date as the sort key.
The application needs to query orders by customer and date range efficiently. A global secondary index can use a different partition key and sort key from the base table, so customer_id as the partition key and order_date as the sort key provides the required access path. Local secondary indexes must share the base table partition key, scans are inefficient, and stream-based copies do not replace a queryable index.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable DynamoDB Streams and use a Lambda function to write customer-based query results to a separate table.
Why it's wrong here
DynamoDB Streams captures item-level changes, but it does not provide a queryable index for the original access pattern. Building a separate table with a Lambda function adds latency, cost, and eventual consistency, and still requires the application to query that table. It does not directly solve efficient retrieval by customer and date range.
- ✗
Create a local secondary index with customer_id as the partition key and order_date as the sort key.
Why it's wrong here
A local secondary index must share the same partition key as the base table, which is order_id in this scenario. You cannot define customer_id as the partition key of a local secondary index. Therefore, this design is invalid for the given table and does not support querying by customer across all orders.
- ✓
Create a global secondary index with customer_id as the partition key and order_date as the sort key.
Why this is correct
A global secondary index with customer_id as the partition key and order_date as the sort key allows the application to query by customer and date range directly. DynamoDB can then use the index to retrieve only the relevant items, avoiding a full table scan. This design matches the required access pattern and scales horizontally with the table.
- ✗
Use a Scan operation with a FilterExpression on customer_id and order_date.
Why it's wrong here
A Scan operation reads every item in the table and then applies the filter, which consumes large amounts of read capacity and does not scale. The requirement explicitly states that full table scans must be avoided. A FilterExpression reduces the returned data but does not reduce the underlying scan cost, so this option fails the efficiency goal.
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
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