The answer is to increase the number of Glue workers and choose a G.1X or G.2X worker type, as this directly addresses the need to reduce Glue ETL runtime and cost by increasing DPUs for growing data. Adding more workers scales parallelism horizontally, allowing the job to process larger datasets in less time, while selecting a worker type with more memory (G.2X) prevents spilling to disk for shuffle-heavy transformations, which further cuts runtime and avoids costly retries. On the AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate DEA-C01 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of how AWS Glue’s distributed processing model scales with DPU allocation—a common trap is assuming RDS read replicas or S3 Transfer Acceleration will speed up ETL, but neither affects Glue’s compute capacity. Remember the mnemonic “More Workers, Less Wait” to recall that increasing DPUs is the primary lever for both performance and cost efficiency as data volumes grow.
DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
This DEA-C01 practice question tests your understanding of data ingestion and transformation. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company uses AWS Glue to run ETL jobs that process data from Amazon RDS to Amazon S3. The jobs run nightly and take 3 hours to complete. The data volume is growing by 20% each month. The engineer needs to reduce job runtime and cost. The source RDS is a db.r5.large instance. Which approach would be MOST effective?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Increase the number of Glue workers and choose a G.1X or G.2X worker type.
Option A is correct because increasing the number of Glue workers (DPUs) directly increases parallelism and reduces runtime, and you can choose a worker type with more memory if needed. Option B is wrong because RDS read replica does not help Glue processing speed. Option C is wrong because S3 Transfer Acceleration is for uploads, not Glue processing. Option D is wrong because reducing DPUs would increase runtime.
Key principle: NAT direction and interface roles matter as much as the IP address mapping. Inside/outside designation controls which traffic is translated.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Reduce the number of DPUs to lower cost and accept longer runtime.
Why it's wrong here
Would increase runtime.
✓
Increase the number of Glue workers and choose a G.1X or G.2X worker type.
Why this is correct
More workers increase parallelism.
Related concept
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
✗
Create a read replica of the RDS instance and point the Glue job to the replica.
Why it's wrong here
Reduces source load but not Glue runtime.
✗
Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration on the destination bucket.
Why it's wrong here
Not relevant to Glue job speed.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
→Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
→Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
→Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
Key takeaway
NAT direction and interface roles matter as much as the IP address mapping. Inside/outside designation controls which traffic is translated.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Review the four NAT address types (inside local, inside global, outside local, outside global), PAT port overload, and static vs dynamic NAT use cases. Then practise related DEA-C01 NAT questions on configuration and troubleshooting.
Data Ingestion and Transformation — This question tests Data Ingestion and Transformation — Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Increase the number of Glue workers and choose a G.1X or G.2X worker type. — Option A is correct because increasing the number of Glue workers (DPUs) directly increases parallelism and reduces runtime, and you can choose a worker type with more memory if needed. Option B is wrong because RDS read replica does not help Glue processing speed. Option C is wrong because S3 Transfer Acceleration is for uploads, not Glue processing. Option D is wrong because reducing DPUs would increase runtime.
What should I do if I get this DEA-C01 question wrong?
Review the four NAT address types (inside local, inside global, outside local, outside global), PAT port overload, and static vs dynamic NAT use cases. Then practise related DEA-C01 NAT questions on configuration and troubleshooting.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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 uses AWS Glue to run ETL jobs that transform data from an Amazon S3 bucket (raw) to another S3 bucket (curated). The jobs run on a schedule and process data incrementally. The data engineer notices that the jobs are taking longer to complete each day, and the job metrics show that the number of DPUs (Data Processing Units) is underutilized. The engineer wants to improve job performance. What should the data engineer do?
medium
✓ A.Increase the number of DPUs allocated to the Glue job to enable more parallelism.
B.Switch from batch processing to streaming using AWS Glue Streaming.
C.Enable job bookmarks to skip already processed data more efficiently.
D.Decrease the number of DPUs to reduce resource contention.
Why A: Option A is correct because increasing the number of DPUs can reduce job duration if the workload is parallelizable. The underutilization suggests that more DPUs could be used. Option B is wrong because decreasing DPUs would increase time. Option C is wrong because the issue is not about job bookmarks (which handle incremental processing). Option D is wrong because converting to streaming may not be appropriate for batch jobs.
Last reviewed: Jun 20, 2026
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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.
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