DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question

Exhibit

Refer to the exhibit.

IAM policy for an IAM role used by an AWS Glue crawler:
```json
{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:GetObject",
                "s3:ListBucket"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:s3:::my-data-lake/*",
                "arn:aws:s3:::my-data-lake"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "glue:GetDatabase",
                "glue:CreateTable",
                "glue:UpdateTable",
                "glue:DeleteTable"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}
```

A data engineer runs an AWS Glue crawler that is configured to crawl an S3 bucket named 'my-data-lake' and update the Glue Data Catalog. The crawler fails with an access denied error. The IAM role attached to the crawler has the policy shown in the exhibit. What is the likely cause of the failure?

⚠ Common exam trap

The trap here is that candidates focus on S3 and Glue Data Catalog permissions, overlooking the mandatory CloudWatch Logs permissions required for AWS Glue crawlers to run successfully.

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 policy does not allow logging to CloudWatch Logs.

AWS Glue crawlers require permissions to write logs to CloudWatch Logs for monitoring and debugging. Without the `logs:CreateLogGroup`, `logs:CreateLogStream`, and `logs:PutLogEvents` actions, the crawler fails with an access denied error even if it has S3 and Glue Data Catalog permissions. The IAM policy shown does not include these CloudWatch Logs permissions, making option C the correct answer.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

✗
The policy does not allow glue:CreateTable on the 'my-data-lake' database.
Why it's wrong here
The policy allows glue:CreateTable on all resources ("*").
✗
The policy does not allow s3:PutObject on the 'my-data-lake' bucket.
Why it's wrong here
The crawler only reads from S3, it does not write to S3.
✓
The policy does not allow logging to CloudWatch Logs.
Why this is correct
Glue crawlers require permissions to create log groups and streams and write logs; the policy lacks logs:CreateLogGroup, logs:CreateLogStream, and logs:PutLogEvents.
✗
The policy does not allow s3:ListBucket on the 'my-data-lake' bucket.
Why it's wrong here
The policy includes s3:ListBucket on the bucket ARN.

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

DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question

Exhibit

Why each option matters

Option-by-option breakdown

AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison

Related to this question