DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A data engineering team uses AWS Glue ETL jobs to process data from Amazon S3. The jobs recently started failing with 'Access Denied' errors when writing to the output S3 bucket. What is the most likely cause?
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 S3 bucket policy was modified to deny write access to the Glue job's IAM role.
AWS Glue ETL jobs use an IAM role for permissions. If the S3 bucket policy was modified to explicitly deny write access to that role, the job would fail with 'Access Denied' errors. Option A is incorrect because KMS key access issues would cause encryption-related errors, not generic access denied. Option B is incorrect because default encryption is not required for write access; it only affects encryption at rest. Option C is incorrect because out-of-memory errors would manifest as runtime errors, not access denied.
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 KMS key used for server-side encryption is not accessible to the Glue job.
Why it's wrong here
KMS key issues cause specific encryption errors, not generic access denied.
- ✗
The S3 bucket does not have default encryption enabled.
Why it's wrong here
Lack of encryption is not an access denied issue; the job can write without encryption.
- ✗
The job ran out of memory due to large data volume.
Why it's wrong here
Insufficient memory causes out-of-memory errors, not access denied.
- ✓
The S3 bucket policy was modified to deny write access to the Glue job's IAM role.
Why this is correct
An explicit deny in the bucket policy overrides any allow in the IAM role policy.
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.