DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A financial services company runs a critical data pipeline using AWS Step Functions to orchestrate multiple AWS Lambda functions and AWS Glue jobs. The pipeline processes transaction data and must complete within 15 minutes to meet a service-level agreement (SLA). Recently, the pipeline has been failing intermittently with a 'StateMachineExecutionLimitExceeded' error. The Step Functions state machine is configured with a Standard type. The company has a single state machine that runs on demand. The error occurs when multiple requests are submitted simultaneously. What should the team do to prevent this error?
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
✓
Request a service quota increase for concurrent executions of Standard Workflows.
The 'StateMachineExecutionLimitExceeded' error indicates that the account-level limit for concurrent Standard Workflow executions has been reached. The default limit is 1,000 concurrent executions per account per region. To handle simultaneous submissions, requesting a service quota increase is the appropriate action. Option A (increasing timeout) does not affect concurrent execution limits. Option B (switching to Express Workflow) is not ideal because Express Workflows have a maximum duration of 5 minutes, which cannot meet the 15-minute SLA, and the error is not about throughput but about concurrency limits. Option D (increasing Lambda reserved concurrency) is unrelated to Step Functions execution limits.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the state machine execution timeout to 30 minutes.
Why it's wrong here
Timeout changes affect execution duration, not the number of concurrent executions allowed.
- ✗
Switch the state machine type to Express Workflow to handle higher throughput.
Why it's wrong here
Express Workflows have a maximum duration of 5 minutes, which may not be sufficient for the pipeline.
- ✓
Request a service quota increase for concurrent executions of Standard Workflows.
Why this is correct
The error is due to hitting the account-level limit for concurrent Standard Workflow executions; a quota increase resolves it.
- ✗
Increase the Lambda function reserved concurrency to 100.
Why it's wrong here
Lambda concurrency limits do not affect Step Functions execution limits.
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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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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