DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A data engineer runs a Spark job on Amazon EMR that reads data from Amazon S3 and writes results back to S3. The job fails with an 'S3AccessDenied' error. The engineer verifies that the IAM role attached to the EMR cluster has s3:GetObject and s3:PutObject permissions on the relevant buckets. What is the MOST likely cause of the error?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to assume GetObject and PutObject are sufficient for S3 read/write operations, overlooking that the ListBucket permission is required for directory listing and file discovery in Spark jobs.
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
✓
The IAM role does not have s3:ListBucket permission on the bucket.
The IAM role attached to the EMR cluster must have the s3:ListBucket permission on the bucket to allow the Spark job to enumerate objects when reading from S3. Without this permission, even with s3:GetObject and s3:PutObject, the job fails with an 'S3AccessDenied' error because the S3 list operation is required for directory listing and file discovery.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
S3 Transfer Acceleration is not enabled on the bucket.
Why it's wrong here
S3 Transfer Acceleration is not required for EMR jobs.
- ✗
EMRFS consistent view is not configured.
Why it's wrong here
EMRFS consistent view affects consistency, not access permissions.
- ✗
The S3 bucket is in a different AWS Region than the EMR cluster.
Why it's wrong here
Cross-region access works with proper permissions; this would cause a timeout or different error.
- ✓
The IAM role does not have s3:ListBucket permission on the bucket.
Why this is correct
EMR requires ListBucket permission to access objects in the bucket.
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 by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.