DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A data engineering team is building a data lake on Amazon S3. They need to ingest data from multiple sources: (1) streaming IoT data, (2) daily CSV exports from an on-premises system via SFTP, and (3) change data capture (CDC) from an Amazon Aurora database. Which THREE services should the team use to ingest these data sources?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse AWS Glue ETL (a batch ETL tool) with AWS DMS (a database migration and CDC service), and assuming Amazon EMR is an ingestion service rather than a processing framework for large-scale data transformations.
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 Kinesis Data Streams for IoT data ingestion.
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is purpose-built for real-time streaming data ingestion, making it ideal for IoT data that arrives continuously. It can capture and store data streams for processing by consumers like Kinesis Data Analytics or Lambda, providing low-latency ingestion and durable storage.
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 Kinesis Data Streams for IoT data ingestion.
Why this is correct
Kinesis is ideal for real-time streaming data from devices.
- ✓
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for CDC from Aurora.
Why this is correct
DMS supports ongoing replication and CDC from Aurora.
- ✓
AWS Transfer Family for SFTP-based file ingestion.
Why this is correct
Transfer Family provides managed SFTP service for file uploads.
- ✗
AWS Glue ETL for CDC from Aurora.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Glue ETL lacks native change data capture (CDC) integration for Aurora; it requires custom logic or additional services like AWS DMS to capture ongoing row-level changes. This option is tempting because Glue ETL is commonly used for batch transformations and could handle initial Aurora snapshots, but it cannot continuously stream CDC events without external tooling.
- ✗
Amazon EMR for daily CSV ingestion.
Why it's wrong here
EMR is for processing, not ingestion; CSV files can be ingested via Transfer Family or S3 APIs.
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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JA
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.