DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A data engineer is troubleshooting a failed AWS Glue ETL job. The job reads from an S3 bucket and writes to an RDS MySQL database. The job fails with an 'Access Denied' error when trying to write to RDS. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse network connectivity issues (Option B) with authorization errors, but 'Access Denied' is a specific HTTP 403 error indicating lack of permissions, not a network problem.
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
✓
The IAM role associated with the Glue job does not have the necessary permissions to write to the RDS instance.
The error 'Access Denied' when writing to RDS indicates that the AWS Glue job's IAM role lacks the necessary permissions (e.g., rds-db:connect, or specific database-level GRANTs) to perform write operations on the RDS MySQL instance. AWS Glue uses the attached IAM role to authenticate and authorize actions against AWS services, and without proper IAM policies allowing access to the RDS resource, the write attempt is denied.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
The IAM role associated with the Glue job does not have the necessary permissions to write to the RDS instance.
Why this is correct
IAM role needs RDS write permissions.
- ✗
The Glue job is running in a VPC without a route to the internet.
Why it's wrong here
Would cause timeout, not access denied.
- ✗
The S3 bucket policy does not allow the Glue job to read the data.
Why it's wrong here
Error is on write to RDS, not read from S3.
- ✗
The RDS instance is encrypted with a KMS key that the Glue job cannot access.
Why it's wrong here
Would cause decryption error, not access denied.
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
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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.