DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A healthcare company is building a data pipeline to ingest electronic health records (EHR) from hospitals. The data is sent as JSON files via SFTP to an on-premises server. The company wants to move this data to AWS using AWS Transfer Family (SFTP) and then process it with AWS Glue. Data sovereignty regulations require that all data remain within the EU (Frankfurt) region. The pipeline must detect when a new file arrives and start the Glue job automatically. The engineer has set up an AWS Transfer Family server in Frankfurt, and files are uploaded to an S3 bucket in the same region. However, the Glue job is not triggering automatically. The engineer needs to implement automated triggering. What should the engineer do?
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
✓
Set up an S3 event notification on the bucket to invoke an AWS Lambda function that starts the Glue job.
S3 event notifications can be configured to invoke an AWS Lambda function when a new object is created in the bucket, and the Lambda function can then start the AWS Glue job. This is the simplest and most direct method for automated triggering. Option A (Step Functions) adds unnecessary complexity and polling overhead. Option B (CloudWatch Events) cannot directly monitor S3 object creation events; it would require additional custom logic. Option C (SQS) is an unnecessary intermediary; S3 can directly invoke Lambda without needing a queue.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Configure AWS Step Functions to poll the S3 bucket every minute and start the Glue job if new files exist.
Why it's wrong here
Step Functions is overkill and polling is inefficient compared to event-driven approach.
- ✗
Configure Amazon CloudWatch Events to trigger the Glue job on a schedule that checks for new files.
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch Events cannot directly detect new S3 objects; a scheduled job would check periodically, causing delays.
- ✗
Use Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) to queue file metadata and have a Lambda function poll the queue to start the Glue job.
Why it's wrong here
SQS is unnecessary overhead; S3 event notifications directly invoke Lambda.
- ✓
Set up an S3 event notification on the bucket to invoke an AWS Lambda function that starts the Glue job.
Why this is correct
S3 event notifications can invoke Lambda immediately when a new file is uploaded.
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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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on DEA-C01
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company is building a data lake on S3. They have a large volume of CSV files (hundreds of GB) in a source bucket. They need to convert them to Parquet, partition by date, and ensure the data is encrypted at rest with SSE-KMS. The pipeline must be triggered automatically when new files arrive. Which THREE steps should be part of the solution? (Choose THREE.)
hard- ✓ A.Configure S3 Event Notification to send events to an SQS queue
- B.Use Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose to ingest new files
- ✓ C.Create an AWS Glue ETL job that converts to Parquet and partitions by date
- D.Use Amazon Athena CTAS query to convert files in batch
- ✓ E.Configure the Glue job to use a KMS key for server-side encryption in S3
Why A: S3 Event Notifications can be configured to send events to an SQS queue when new CSV files arrive. This decouples the ingestion pipeline, allowing the Glue job to poll the queue for new file notifications and trigger processing without tight coupling or polling the S3 bucket directly. SQS provides reliable, scalable message delivery that can trigger downstream ETL workflows.
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.