Troubleshooting Lake Formation and Athena Access Denied
A company uses AWS Lake Formation to manage permissions on a data lake. A data engineer creates a table in the Data Catalog and grants SELECT permission to a group of analysts. The analysts report they can see the table but get an AccessDenied error when querying it with Amazon Athena. What is the most likely cause?
Quick Answer
The answer is the analysts' IAM role lacks permission to call the Athena API. This is correct because AWS Lake Formation handles fine-grained access control on the Data Catalog and underlying data, but it does not grant the IAM permissions required to invoke the Athena service itself. Even when Lake Formation permissions like SELECT are properly granted, Athena still requires an IAM policy that allows actions such as athena:StartQueryExecution and athena:GetQueryResults. On the AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate DEA-C01 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of the separation between Lake Formation’s resource-based permissions and IAM’s service-level permissions—a common trap is assuming Lake Formation alone is sufficient. A useful memory tip is to think of Lake Formation as the “bouncer” for the data, but IAM is the “ticket” to enter the Athena venue.
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 analysts' IAM role does not have permission to call the Athena API.
The analysts can see the table in the Data Catalog but receive an AccessDenied error when querying with Athena. This indicates that Lake Formation has granted SELECT permission on the table, so the table is visible and the permission exists. The error occurs when Athena attempts to run the query, meaning the IAM role used by Athena (which is the analysts' role or a service role) lacks permission to call the Athena API (e.g., StartQueryExecution, GetQueryResults). Lake Formation permissions cover Data Catalog and S3 access, but do not grant IAM permissions for Athena itself. Therefore, Option A is the most likely cause. Option B is incorrect because the table is visible, so it is registered. Option C is incorrect because the workgroup result location issue would produce a different error (e.g., insufficient permissions on S3). Option D is incorrect because Lake Formation manages S3 access via registered locations, and if the table is registered, the bucket policy is overridden by Lake Formation permissions.
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 analysts' IAM role does not have permission to call the Athena API.
Why this is correct
Lake Formation grants database permissions, but IAM must allow Athena actions.
- ✗
The table is not registered with Lake Formation as a resource.
Why it's wrong here
The table is in the Data Catalog and permissions are granted.
- ✗
The Athena workgroup is configured with a per-query result location that the analysts cannot write to.
Why it's wrong here
This would cause a result writing error, not AccessDenied on the table.
- ✗
The S3 bucket policy does not allow the analysts' IAM role.
Why it's wrong here
Lake Formation handles S3 access via its service role.
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
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,711 original DEA-C01 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
3 more ways 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 uses AWS Lake Formation to manage permissions on a data lake stored in S3. A data engineer notices that a new IAM user can query data via Athena but cannot see the tables in the Lake Formation console. What is the most likely cause?
medium- ✓ A.The user has not been granted DESCRIBE or SELECT permissions on the tables in Lake Formation
- B.The Athena workgroup is not encrypted
- C.The Glue Data Catalog is not enabled for the account
- D.The IAM user lacks s3:GetObject permissions
Why A: Lake Formation permissions are separate from IAM permissions. Even if the IAM user has Athena access, Lake Formation must grant the user DESCRIBE and SELECT permissions on the tables to see them in the console and query them. Option B is incorrect because encryption settings do not affect table visibility. Option C is incorrect because the Glue Data Catalog is enabled (since the user can query data). Option D is incorrect because the user can query data, so they have s3:GetObject permissions implicitly.
Variation 2. A company uses AWS Lake Formation to manage data lake permissions. A data analyst is unable to query a table in the data lake using Amazon Athena. The table is registered in Lake Formation, and the analyst has SELECT permission granted via Lake Formation. What is the most likely reason for the failure?
medium- A.Athena is configured to use encryption in transit
- ✓ B.The IAM role used by Athena does not have necessary Lake Formation permissions
- C.The S3 bucket policy does not grant access to the analyst's IAM role
- D.The table is not registered in the AWS Glue Data Catalog
Why B: Lake Formation integrates with Athena, and the IAM role assumed by Athena must have necessary Lake Formation permissions (e.g., SELECT on the table) to query the data. Option A is incorrect because encryption in transit is about data protection during transmission, not access control; it does not prevent querying. Option C is incorrect because when using Lake Formation, S3 bucket policies are not the primary mechanism for granting access; Lake Formation manages permissions, and the bucket policy typically allows the Lake Formation service role, not the analyst's role. Option D is incorrect because the table is registered in Lake Formation, which requires it to be in the AWS Glue Data Catalog; so this is not the issue.
Variation 3. A company uses AWS Lake Formation to manage permissions on a data lake stored in S3. A data scientist is unable to query a table in Amazon Athena, receiving an 'Access Denied' error. The data scientist has IAM permissions to call Athena and has been granted SELECT permission on the table in Lake Formation. What is the most likely cause?
medium- A.The data scientist does not have DESCRIBE permission on the table.
- B.The data is encrypted with SSE-KMS and the data scientist lacks kms:Decrypt permission.
- C.The S3 bucket policy denies access to the data scientist's IAM role.
- ✓ D.The S3 bucket containing the data is not registered as a Lake Formation location.
Why D: The most likely cause is that the S3 bucket containing the data is not registered as a Lake Formation location. Lake Formation manages permissions for registered S3 locations, but if the bucket is not registered, Lake Formation cannot enforce its permissions, and the data scientist would rely on S3 bucket policies, which may deny access. Option A is incorrect because DESCRIBE permission is not required for querying. Option B is incorrect because encryption is not mentioned as an issue. Option C is incorrect because bucket policies are not the primary issue if the bucket is registered; the error occurs because the bucket is not registered.
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.