DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A data engineer is using AWS Step Functions to orchestrate a daily pipeline that runs several AWS Glue jobs in sequence. One Glue job intermittently fails due to a transient Amazon S3 503 error. The engineer wants the state machine to automatically retry only that Glue job up to three times with exponential backoff, without retrying the other jobs. What should the engineer do?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is conflating AWS Glue job-level MaximumRetries with Step Functions state-level Retry, which are separate mechanisms with different scope and backoff behavior.
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
✓
Add a Retry field to the Glue job task state with ErrorEquals set to States.TaskFailed, MaxAttempts set to 3, and an appropriate IntervalSeconds and BackoffRate.
Step Functions retry logic is declared inside the state definition, so attaching a Retry field to the Glue job task scopes retries to that task alone. Specifying MaxAttempts of 3 with IntervalSeconds and BackoffRate produces exponential backoff for transient failures. The other choices either apply retries at the wrong layer, change pipeline structure, or use services that cannot restart executions.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Set the Glue job's MaximumRetries property to 3 in the job definition, then add a Catch field in the state machine to handle final failures.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Glue job MaximumRetries applies to retries of individual job runs within Glue, but it does not provide Step Functions exponential backoff semantics or per-state control in the state machine. The engineer wants retry behavior defined in the orchestration layer for a single task. Mixing the two can cause more attempts than intended and obscures where retries occur.
- ✓
Add a Retry field to the Glue job task state with ErrorEquals set to States.TaskFailed, MaxAttempts set to 3, and an appropriate IntervalSeconds and BackoffRate.
Why this is correct
Step Functions Retry is configured per state, so adding it to the specific Glue job task retries only that task up to three times. Exponential backoff is achieved with IntervalSeconds and BackoffRate, and ErrorEquals can include States.TaskFailed to catch transient failures. This precisely satisfies the requirement without affecting other jobs in the sequence.
- ✗
Configure an Amazon CloudWatch alarm on Glue job failures and use an Application Auto Scaling policy to restart the state machine execution.
Why it's wrong here
Application Auto Scaling targets scalable resources such as DynamoDB tables or ECS services, not Step Functions executions. A CloudWatch alarm cannot restart a failed execution automatically in this way. This approach adds monitoring noise without providing the required per-task retry with backoff.
- ✗
Wrap the entire state machine in a Map state and set MaxConcurrency to 1 so that failures are retried automatically by Step Functions.
Why it's wrong here
Map states iterate over arrays and control concurrency; they do not implement retry with exponential backoff for a failing Glue job. Setting MaxConcurrency to 1 only limits parallel iterations. This does not address retrying the single failing task, and it changes the pipeline's structure unnecessarily.
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 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
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.