DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A data engineer needs to monitor the number of records processed by an AWS Glue ETL job and send an alert if the count drops below a threshold. Which AWS service should be used to create this custom metric?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse AWS CloudTrail with CloudWatch because both are monitoring-related, but CloudTrail is for auditing API calls, not for ingesting custom numerical metrics or setting alarms on them.
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
✓
Amazon CloudWatch
Amazon CloudWatch is the correct service for creating custom metrics because it allows you to publish your own data points, such as the number of records processed by an AWS Glue ETL job. You can use the CloudWatch PutMetricData API or the AWS Glue job script to emit a custom metric, then set an alarm on that metric to trigger an alert when the count drops below a threshold.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon S3
Why it's wrong here
Amazon S3 stores objects and cannot publish custom CloudWatch metrics or evaluate thresholds; it merely holds the job's input and output data. It is tempting because Glue jobs read and write S3, so engineers associate it with the pipeline, but metric creation and alarming require CloudWatch, not the storage layer.
- ✗
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config records resource configuration changes and evaluates compliance rules, not application-level record counts from a Glue job. It is tempting because it performs continuous monitoring and can trigger alerts, but that monitoring targets resource state drift, not custom ETL metrics, which belong in CloudWatch.
- ✓
Amazon CloudWatch
Why this is correct
Amazon CloudWatch accepts custom metrics published from the Glue job and evaluates them against metric alarms, triggering Amazon SNS notifications when the record count falls below the threshold. This provides the monitoring and alerting the scenario requires.
- ✗
AWS CloudTrail
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail records API activity for auditing, not ETL record counts, so it cannot publish a custom metric or alarm. It tempts because it is the default AWS monitoring answer, and it would be correct for tracing who invoked a Glue API call.
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