DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A data engineer is using AWS Step Functions to orchestrate a daily ETL workflow that includes an AWS Glue job, an Amazon EMR step, and an Amazon Redshift stored procedure. The workflow occasionally fails and the engineer needs to troubleshoot and recover. Which TWO actions should the engineer take to identify the failure and resume from the failed step? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that restarting the entire workflow or manually rerunning individual jobs is the only recovery path, while overlooking Step Functions' native logging and Redrive capabilities.
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
✓
Use the Step Functions 'Redrive' capability to restart the execution from the failed state after fixing the underlying issue.
To troubleshoot a failed Step Functions execution, enabling logging and reviewing execution history provides the necessary error details. Once the root cause is fixed, the Redrive feature allows resuming from the failed state without re-running successful steps. These two actions together enable efficient diagnosis and recovery.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Delete the state machine and recreate it with a retry policy on every state.
Why it's wrong here
Deleting and recreating the state machine loses execution history and does not address the current failure. Adding retry policies may help with transient errors but does not provide a way to resume from the failed step. This approach is disruptive and unnecessary for troubleshooting and recovery.
- ✓
Use the Step Functions 'Redrive' capability to restart the execution from the failed state after fixing the underlying issue.
Why this is correct
Redrive allows resuming a failed execution from the point of failure, preserving previous successful steps and their outputs. This avoids re-running the entire workflow and is the recommended way to recover after correcting the root cause. It requires the state machine to have the necessary IAM permissions and the execution to be in a failed state.
- ✓
Enable AWS Step Functions logging to CloudWatch Logs and inspect the execution history for the failed state.
Why this is correct
Step Functions logging to CloudWatch Logs captures execution events and errors, allowing the engineer to pinpoint which state failed and why. The execution history in the console also shows input/output and error details for each step. This is essential for troubleshooting the specific failure before attempting recovery.
- ✗
Configure the state machine to use an Amazon SQS dead-letter queue for failed states and reprocess messages manually.
Why it's wrong here
Step Functions does not natively send failed state events to an SQS dead-letter queue for reprocessing. While you can integrate SQS for custom error handling, it does not provide a built-in resume-from-failure mechanism. This adds complexity and does not directly solve the troubleshooting and recovery requirement.
- ✗
Manually trigger the AWS Glue job and Amazon EMR step from the console, then restart the Step Functions execution from the beginning.
Why it's wrong here
Manually running individual jobs bypasses orchestration and may cause duplicate processing or inconsistent state. Restarting from the beginning re-runs all steps, including those that already succeeded, which is inefficient and may lead to data duplication. This is not a recommended recovery method when native redrive is available.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,321 original DEA-C01 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.