Quick Answer
The answer is Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, as it is purpose-built for ingesting high-throughput streaming data at scale. Kinesis Data Streams can handle the 500 records per second from the social media API by sharding the data across multiple streams, enabling real-time capture and durable storage before the data lands in Amazon S3 for batch analytics. On the AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate DEA-C01 exam, this question tests your ability to distinguish between streaming ingestion services and message-oriented services; a common trap is confusing Kinesis with SQS or SNS, but remember that Kinesis is designed for continuous, high-volume data streams, not decoupled messaging or pub/sub notifications. For a memory tip, think “Kinesis for streams, SQS for queues, SNS for notifications”—when you need to capture and replay data at high throughput, Kinesis is the only service that natively supports sharding and retention for analytics pipelines.
This DEA-C01 practice question tests your understanding of data ingestion and transformation. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A data engineer needs to ingest streaming data from a social media API into Amazon S3 for batch analytics. The data arrives at a rate of 500 records per second. Which service should be used to capture the stream?
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
Why wrong: SNS is for push notifications, not for data streaming.
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
Why wrong: SQS is for decoupling components, not for streaming ingestion.
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
Kinesis Data Streams is designed for real-time streaming data ingestion.
Amazon MQ
Why wrong: Amazon MQ is a managed message broker for ActiveMQ, not for streaming.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
Option B is correct because Kinesis Data Streams can capture high-throughput streaming data. Option A is wrong because SQS is for message queues, not for streaming analytics. Option C is wrong because SNS is for pub/sub notifications. Option D is wrong because MQ is for message brokers.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
Why it's wrong here
SNS is for push notifications, not for data streaming.
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
Why it's wrong here
SQS is for decoupling components, not for streaming ingestion.
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
Why this is correct
Kinesis Data Streams is designed for real-time streaming data ingestion.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Amazon MQ
Why it's wrong here
Amazon MQ is a managed message broker for ActiveMQ, not for streaming.
Common exam traps
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Detailed technical explanation
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Identify which DEA-C01 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
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FAQ
Data Ingestion and Transformation — This question tests Data Ingestion and Transformation — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Amazon Kinesis Data Streams — Option B is correct because Kinesis Data Streams can capture high-throughput streaming data. Option A is wrong because SQS is for message queues, not for streaming analytics. Option C is wrong because SNS is for pub/sub notifications. Option D is wrong because MQ is for message brokers.
Identify which DEA-C01 exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
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 streaming data from thousands of IoT devices into AWS for real-time processing. The data volume peaks at 5 GB/min. Which AWS service should be used as the ingestion endpoint?
easyWhy A: Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is designed for real-time streaming data ingestion. Option A is wrong because S3 is for object storage, not real-time streaming. Option B is wrong because Lambda is compute, not an ingestion endpoint. Option D is wrong because Glue is for ETL jobs.
Variation 2. A data engineer needs to ingest streaming data from thousands of IoT devices and immediately process each record with minimal latency. Which AWS service should be used as the ingestion point?
easyWhy C: Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is designed for real-time streaming data ingestion with low latency. AWS Glue is for batch ETL, S3 is object storage, and Lambda is compute but not an ingestion endpoint itself.
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Last reviewed: Jun 20, 2026
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.
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