MLS-C01 Data Engineering Practice Question
A data engineer is designing a data pipeline that ingests data from a relational database into a data lake on Amazon S3. The data must be incrementally loaded daily. Which TWO AWS services can be used together to achieve this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse Amazon Kinesis Data Streams (real-time streaming) with batch ingestion, or assume Amazon Athena can perform data ingestion when it is only a query engine, leading them to overlook the correct combination of Glue and DMS for scheduled incremental loads.
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
✓
AWS Glue
AWS Glue is correct because it provides a managed ETL service that can extract data from a relational database using JDBC connections, transform it, and write it incrementally to Amazon S3. Glue's built-in job bookmarking feature tracks processed data, enabling incremental loads by automatically skipping already-processed records during subsequent runs.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
AWS Glue
Why this is correct
Glue can use job bookmarks for incremental loads.
- ✗
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
Why it's wrong here
Kinesis is for streaming data, not incremental batch from a database.
- ✗
Amazon Athena
Why it's wrong here
Athena is not an ingestion tool.
- ✗
Amazon Redshift
Why it's wrong here
Redshift is a destination, not an ingestion service.
- ✓
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)
Why this is correct
DMS can do incremental replication to S3.
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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Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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