Quick Answer
The correct answer is Amazon CloudWatch and Amazon SNS. CloudWatch is the native monitoring service for AWS Glue, capturing job metrics, logs, and state changes like failures or timeouts, while SNS handles the notification delivery by publishing alerts to email, SMS, or other endpoints when a CloudWatch alarm triggers. On the AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate DEA-C01 exam, this pairing tests your understanding of the native monitoring and alerting architecture for Glue ETL jobs—a common scenario in pipeline reliability questions. A frequent trap is choosing AWS Lambda or Step Functions for notifications, but remember that SNS is the simplest, fully managed pub/sub service for direct alerts without additional orchestration. Memory tip: think “Glue sticks to CloudWatch, CloudWatch rings SNS.”
This DEA-C01 practice question tests your understanding of data operations and support. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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 data engineer is setting up a data pipeline using AWS Glue. The engineer wants to monitor job failures and receive notifications. Which TWO services can be used together for this purpose?
AWS Step Functions
Why wrong: Step Functions orchestrates workflows.
Amazon CloudWatch
Glue publishes job metrics to CloudWatch.
Amazon SNS
SNS sends notifications from CloudWatch alarms.
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
Why wrong: Kinesis is for real-time data streaming.
Amazon SQS
Why wrong: SQS is a queue service.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Amazon CloudWatch
Amazon CloudWatch (B) is correct because it is the native monitoring service for AWS Glue, capturing job metrics, logs, and state changes. You can configure CloudWatch alarms to trigger on job failures, which then invoke Amazon SNS (C) to send notifications via email, SMS, or other endpoints. Together, they provide a complete monitoring and alerting solution without additional orchestration.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
AWS Step Functions
Why it's wrong here
Step Functions orchestrates workflows.
Amazon CloudWatch
Why this is correct
Glue publishes job metrics to CloudWatch.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Amazon SNS
Why this is correct
SNS sends notifications from CloudWatch alarms.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
Why it's wrong here
Kinesis is for real-time data streaming.
Amazon SQS
Why it's wrong here
SQS is a queue service.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates may confuse AWS Step Functions (A) as a monitoring tool because it can orchestrate retries, but it does not natively send notifications and is not the primary service for monitoring Glue job failures.
Detailed technical explanation
Under the hood, AWS Glue publishes job run state changes (e.g., FAILED, SUCCEEDED, TIMEOUT) to CloudWatch Events (now part of Amazon EventBridge). You can create an EventBridge rule that matches a 'Glue Job Run State Change' event with a status of 'FAILED' and routes it to an SNS topic. SNS then fans out the notification to subscribed endpoints (e.g., email, SMS, HTTP/S). This pattern avoids polling and provides near-real-time alerts with minimal latency.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.
What to study next
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
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FAQ
Data Operations and Support — This question tests Data Operations and Support — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Amazon CloudWatch — Amazon CloudWatch (B) is correct because it is the native monitoring service for AWS Glue, capturing job metrics, logs, and state changes. You can configure CloudWatch alarms to trigger on job failures, which then invoke Amazon SNS (C) to send notifications via email, SMS, or other endpoints. Together, they provide a complete monitoring and alerting solution without additional orchestration.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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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