DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A data engineer needs to schedule a daily ETL job that runs on Amazon EMR. The job should be triggered automatically and send an email on failure. Which AWS service should the engineer use to orchestrate the job?
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
✓
AWS Step Functions
WS Step Functions (Option B). Step Functions is a serverless workflow service that can orchestrate multiple AWS services, including EMR steps, into a state machine. It can be triggered on a schedule using Amazon EventBridge or CloudWatch Events, and it can integrate with Amazon SNS to send email notifications on failure. Option A (Amazon EventBridge) is an event bus that can trigger services but does not provide built-in orchestration for complex workflows. Option C (SQS) is a message queue service and not an orchestrator. Option D (Amazon CloudWatch Events) is similar to EventBridge and can trigger Lambda functions but lacks native workflow orchestration capabilities.
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 EventBridge
Why it's wrong here
Event bus, not orchestrator.
- ✓
AWS Step Functions
Why this is correct
Orchestrates EMR steps and integrates with SNS.
- ✗
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
Why it's wrong here
Message queue, not orchestrator.
- ✗
Amazon CloudWatch Events
Why it's wrong here
Can trigger but not orchestrate.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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