MLS-C01 Data Engineering Practice Question
An e-commerce company uses Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose to deliver clickstream data to Amazon S3. The data arrives at unpredictable rates, with occasional bursts. The company needs to ensure data is delivered within 60 seconds of ingestion, and the data must be partitioned by year/month/day/hour. Which configuration meets these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates think a Lambda function or Glue ETL is required for custom partitioning, when Firehose's native dynamic partitioning can handle time-based partitioning directly with a simple configuration change.
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
✓
Set the buffer interval to 60 seconds and enable dynamic partitioning
Setting the buffer interval to 60 seconds ensures data is flushed to Amazon S3 within that time window, meeting the 60-second delivery requirement. Enabling dynamic partitioning allows Firehose to automatically partition data by year/month/day/hour based on the data's timestamp, without needing custom code or additional services.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Set the buffer size to 1 MB and disable dynamic partitioning
Why it's wrong here
1 MB buffer may cause many small files; no partitioning.
- ✗
Use a Lambda function to process data and write to S3 with partitioning
Why it's wrong here
Adds latency and complexity; Firehose can do this natively.
- ✗
Use AWS Glue streaming ETL to read from Firehose and write to S3
Why it's wrong here
Unnecessary intermediate step; Firehose delivers directly to S3.
- ✓
Set the buffer interval to 60 seconds and enable dynamic partitioning
Why this is correct
Buffer interval controls delivery frequency; dynamic partitioning creates time-based folders.
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.