MLS-C01 Data Engineering Practice Question
A data engineer wants to stream clickstream data from a web application to Amazon S3 for near-real-time analytics. Which AWS service should be used to ingest and buffer the data before landing in S3?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse Amazon Kinesis Data Streams with Kinesis Data Firehose, not realizing that Data Streams requires a separate consumer to write to S3, while Firehose is purpose-built for direct, buffered delivery to S3.
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
✓
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose is the correct choice because it is a fully managed service designed to ingest streaming data, buffer it, and reliably deliver it to destinations like Amazon S3 with near-real-time latency (typically 60 seconds). It handles automatic scaling, data transformation, and compression, making it ideal for clickstream data landing directly into S3 for analytics.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon AppFlow
Why it's wrong here
AppFlow is for data ingestion from SaaS applications.
- ✗
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
Why it's wrong here
Kinesis Data Streams requires custom consumers to write to S3.
- ✓
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose
Why this is correct
Firehose can directly deliver streaming data to S3.
- ✗
AWS Glue
Why it's wrong here
Glue is a serverless ETL service, not for real-time streaming.
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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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This MLS-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 MLS-C01 exam.