Free Practice Questions for the Amazon Web Services AWS Certified Data Engineer Data-Engineer-Associate Exam (2026 Updated)

The correct answer is B because the scenario requires scalable approximate vector search, high recall, incremental updates, and complex filtering. Amazon OpenSearch Service supports k-NN vector search for recommendation use cases, and OpenSearch supports k-NN vector fields for high-dimensional vector search. The Lucene HNSW option is strongest here because OpenSearch documentation specifically states that Lucene supports k-NN searches using HNSW graphs and supports Lucene filters for k-NN searches. That directly matches the need for category and inventory filtering. Exact k-NN with Painless script scoring is accurate but too slow for 10 million vectors. IVF can be efficient but is less ideal for frequent incremental updates and complex filtering. Binary quantization reduces memory but sacrifices accuracy.

Option A and B are the correct answers because they meet the requirements most cost-effectively. Using an AWS Lambda function and the Athena Boto3 client start_query_execution API call to invoke the Athena queries programmatically is a simple and scalable way to orchestrate the queries. Creating an AWS Step Functions workflow and adding two states to check the query status and invoke the next query is a reliable and efficient way to handle the long-running queries.

Option C is incorrect because using an AWS Glue Python shell job to invoke the Athena queries programmatically is more expensive than using a Lambda function, as it requires provisioning and running a Glue job for each query.

Option D is incorrect because using an AWS Glue Python shell script to run a sleep timer that checks every 5 minutes to determine whether the current Athena query has finished running successfully is not a cost-effective or reliable way to orchestrate the queries, as it wastes resources and time.

Option E is incorrect because using Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (Amazon MWAA) to orchestrate the Athena queries in AWS Batch is an overkill solution that introduces unnecessary complexity and cost, as it requires setting up and managing an Airflow environment and an AWS Batch compute environment.

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide, Chapter 5: Data Orchestration, Section 5.2: AWS Lambda, Section 5.3: AWS Step Functions, Pages 125-135

Building Batch Data Analytics Solutions on AWS, Module 5: Data Orchestration, Lesson 5.1: AWS Lambda, Lesson 5.2: AWS Step Functions, Pages 1-15

AWS Documentation Overview, AWS Lambda Developer Guide, Working with AWS Lambda Functions, Configuring Function Triggers, Using AWS Lambda with Amazon Athena, Pages 1-4

AWS Documentation Overview, AWS Step Functions Developer Guide, Getting Started, Tutorial: Create a Hello World Workflow, Pages 1-8

 This solution meets the requirements of optimizing the performance of table SQL queries without increasing the size of the cluster. By using the ALL distribution style for rarely updated small tables, you can ensure that the entire table is copied to every node in the cluster, which eliminates the need for data redistribution during joins. This can improve query performance significantly, especially for frequently joined dimension tables. However, using the ALL distribution style also increases the storage space and the load time, so it is only suitable for small tables that are not updated frequently or extensively. By specifying primary and foreign keys for all tables, you can help the query optimizer to generate better query plans and avoid unnecessary scans or joins. You can also use the AUTO distribution style to let Amazon Redshift choose the optimal distribution style based on the table size and the query patterns. References:

Choose the best distribution style

Distribution styles

Working with data distribution styles

Changing the volume type of the existing gp2 volumes to gp3 is the easiest and fastest way to migrate to the new storage type without any downtime or data loss. You can use the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or the Amazon EC2 API to modify the volume type, size, IOPS, and throughput of your gp2 volumes. The modification takes effect immediately, and you can monitor the progress of the modification using CloudWatch. The other options are either more complex or require additional steps, such as creating snapshots, transferring data, or attaching new volumes, which can increase the operational overhead and the risk of errors. References:

Migrating Amazon EBS volumes from gp2 to gp3 and save up to 20% on costs (Section: How to migrate from gp2 to gp3)

Switching from gp2 Volumes to gp3 Volumes to Lower AWS EBS Costs (Section: How to Switch from GP2 Volumes to GP3 Volumes)

Modifying the volume type, IOPS, or size of an EBS volume - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Section: Modifying the volume type)

Amazon Athena is a serverless interactive query service that allows you to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. Athena supports various data formats, such as CSV, JSON, ORC, Avro, and Parquet. However, not all data formats are equally efficient for querying. Some data formats, such as CSV and JSON, are row-oriented, meaning that they store data as a sequence of records, each with the same fields. Row-oriented formats are suitable for loading and exporting data, but they are not optimal for analytical queries that often access only a subset of columns. Row-oriented formats also do not support compression or encoding techniques that can reduce the data size and improve the query performance.

On the other hand, some data formats, such as ORC and Parquet, are column-oriented, meaning that they store data as a collection of columns, each with a specific data type. Column-oriented formats are ideal for analytical queries that often filter, aggregate, or join data by columns. Column-oriented formats also support compression and encoding techniques that can reduce the data size and improve the query performance. For example, Parquet supports dictionary encoding, which replaces repeated values with numeric codes, and run-length encoding, which replaces consecutive identical values with a single value and a count. Parquet also supports various compression algorithms, such as Snappy, GZIP, and ZSTD, that can further reduce the data size and improve the query performance.

Therefore, creating an AWS Glue extract, transform, and load (ETL) job to read from the .csv structured data source and writing the data into the data lake in Apache Parquet format will meet the requirements most cost-effectively. AWS Glue is a fully managed service that provides a serverless data integration platform for data preparation, data cataloging, and data loading. AWS Glue ETL jobs allow you to transform and load data from various sources into various targets, using either a graphical interface (AWS Glue Studio) or a code-based interface (AWS Glue console or AWS Glue API). By using AWS Glue ETL jobs, you can easily convert the data from CSV to Parquet format, without having to write or manage any code. Parquet is a column-oriented format that allows Athena to scan only the relevant columns and skip the rest, reducing the amount of data read from S3. This solution will also reduce the cost of Athena queries, as Athena charges based on the amount of data scanned from S3.

The other options are not as cost-effective as creating an AWS Glue ETL job to write the data into the data lake in Parquet format. Using an AWS Glue PySpark job to ingest the source data into the data lake in .csv format will not improve the query performance or reduce the query cost, as .csv is a row-oriented format that does not support columnar access or compression. Creating an AWS Glue ETL job to ingest the data into the data lake in JSON format will not improve the query performance or reduce the query cost, as JSON is also a row-oriented format that does not support columnar access or compression. Using an AWS Glue PySpark job to ingest the source data into the data lake in Apache Avro format will improve the query performance, as Avro is a column-oriented format that supports compression and encoding, but it will require more operational effort, as you will need to write and maintain PySpark code to convert the data from CSV to Avro format. References:

Amazon Athena

Choosing the Right Data Format

AWS Glue

[AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide], Chapter 5: Data Analysis and Visualization, Section 5.1: Amazon Athena

Option D is correct because the problem is lock contention between ETL writes and analytical reads on the same Redshift tables. AWS documents that table locks can block both reads and writes, and that Redshift data sharing lets you share live data across Redshift clusters and workgroups without manually moving or copying the data. Because the shared data is live, consumer users see the most up-to-date information as soon as it is updated. Separating ETL and analytics onto different Redshift clusters while using data sharing is therefore the cleanest way to isolate workloads and still provide consistent data views.

Option A reduces contention only by changing schedules and does not fully solve concurrent peak-hour conflicts. Option B is not correct because Redshift federated queries are read-only against external sources and do not provide a Redshift “read replica” design for this case. Option C does not address the locking problem on the dimension tables that ETL is updating. The official Redshift guidance and service capabilities point to workload isolation plus data sharing as the best fix. This also matches the exam guide’s emphasis on choosing architectures that maintain performance and consistency without unnecessary copying.

Apache Iceberg is a table format designed for large-scale data lakes that supports ACID transactions, schema evolution, time travel, and row-level updates and deletes. Using S3 Tables with Apache Iceberg provides a fully managed experience that integrates natively with Amazon Athena, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon EMR.

By using AWS Glue with the Iceberg catalog, the data engineer can perform daily updates and deletions without managing Spark clusters, compaction scheduling, or metadata cleanup manually. Iceberg handles snapshots, file pruning, and unreferenced file removal automatically, significantly reducing operational overhead.

Apache Hudi requires Amazon EMR clusters, Spark jobs, and manual compaction orchestration, increasing complexity. The Parquet-only approaches in options C and D do not support updates or deletes efficiently and would require full rewrites of datasets, which is not scalable.

Therefore, using S3 Tables with Apache Iceberg provides the most efficient, scalable, and low-maintenance solution that satisfies all query and update requirements.

The correct answer is to configure AWS Glue triggers to run the ETL jobs every hour and use AWS Glue connections to establish connectivity between the data sources and Amazon Redshift. AWS Glue triggers are a way to schedule and orchestrate ETL jobs with the least operational overhead. AWS Glue connections are a way to securely connect to data sources and targets using JDBC or MongoDB drivers. AWS Glue DataBrew is a visual data preparation tool that does not support MongoDB as a data source. AWS Lambda functions are a serverless option to schedule and run ETL jobs, but they have a limit of 15 minutes for execution time, which may not be enough for complex transformations. The Redshift Data API is a way to run SQL commands on Amazon Redshift clusters without needing a persistent connection, but it does not support loading data from AWS Glue ETL jobs. References:

AWS Glue triggers

AWS Glue connections

AWS Glue DataBrew

[AWS Lambda functions]

[Redshift Data API]

Amazon Redshift supports Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to manage access to database objects. RBAC allows administrators to create roles for job functions and assign privileges at the schema, table, or column level based on data sensitivity and user roles.

“RBAC in Amazon Redshift helps manage permissions more efficiently at scale by assigning users to roles that reflect their job function. It simplifies user management and secures access based on job role and data sensitivity.”

– Ace the AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate Certification - version 2 - apple.pdf

RBAC is preferred over RLS or CLS alone because it offers a more comprehensive and scalable solution across multiple users and permissions.

Option C is correct because the required access pattern is: find all completed rides for a specific driver. In DynamoDB, when you need to query data efficiently by attributes that are not part of the base table primary key, you typically create a global secondary index (GSI). AWS documentation states that a GSI can have a key schema that is different from the base table and can use top-level attributes such as DriverID and RideStatus as its partition and sort keys. That makes it possible to query directly for a given driver and then narrow the results to completed rides, without scanning the full table.

Option A is incorrect because a local secondary index (LSI) must use the same partition key as the base table. Since the table partition key is RideID, an LSI cannot be created with DriverID as the partitioning access path.

Option B uses RiderID, which does not satisfy the requirement to retrieve rides by driver. Option D is also wrong because filter expressions are applied after items are read and therefore do not avoid scanning large amounts of data. The study guide emphasizes choosing the correct data model and access pattern for the workload, which places this question in the Data Storage and Management domain.

Amazon RDS is a fully managed service that provides relational databases in the cloud. Amazon RDS for MySQL is one of the supported database engines that you can use to run your applications. Amazon RDS provides various features and tools to monitor and optimize the performance of your DB instances, such as Performance Insights, Enhanced Monitoring, CloudWatch metrics and alarms, etc.

Using the Performance Insights feature of Amazon RDS to identify queries that have high CPU utilization and optimizing the problematic queries will help reduce the CPU utilization of the DB instance. Performance Insights is a feature that allows you to analyze the load on your DB instance and determine what is causing performance issues. Performance Insights collects, analyzes, and displays database performance data using an interactive dashboard. You can use Performance Insights to identify the top SQL statements, hosts, users, or processes that are consuming the most CPU resources. You can also drill down into the details of each query and see the execution plan, wait events, locks, etc. By using Performance Insights, you can pinpoint the root cause of the high CPU utilization and optimize the queries accordingly. For example, you can rewrite the queries to make them more efficient, add or remove indexes, use prepared statements, etc.

Implementing caching to reduce the database query load will also help reduce the CPU utilization of the DB instance. Caching is a technique that allows you to store frequently accessed data in a fast and scalable storage layer, such as Amazon ElastiCache. By using caching, you can reduce the number of requests that hit your database, which in turn reduces the CPU load on your DB instance. Caching also improves the performance and availability of your application, as it reduces the latency and increases the throughput of your data access. You can use caching for various scenarios, such as storing session data, user preferences, application configuration, etc. You can also use caching for read-heavy workloads, such as displaying product details, recommendations, reviews, etc.

The other options are not as effective as using Performance Insights and caching. Modifying the database schema to include additional tables and indexes may or may not improve the CPU utilization, depending on the nature of the workload and the queries. Adding more tables and indexes may increase the complexity and overhead of the database, which may negatively affect the performance. Rebooting the RDS DB instance once each week will not reduce the CPU utilization, as it will not address the underlying cause of the high CPU load. Rebooting may also cause downtime and disruption to your application. Upgrading to a larger instance size may reduce the CPU utilization, but it will also increase the cost and complexity of your solution. Upgrading may also not be necessary if you can optimize the queries and reduce the database load by using caching. References:

Amazon RDS

Performance Insights

Amazon ElastiCache

[AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide], Chapter 3: Data Storage and Management, Section 3.1: Amazon RDS

Options A and B are correct because both are managed, serverless orchestration approaches for AWS Glue ETL pipelines.

AWS Step Functions is a serverless orchestration service that can coordinate AWS services, including Glue jobs, as a sequence of steps. AWS documentation states that Step Functions supports built-in error handling with Retry and Catch, which directly fits the requirement to coordinate ETL jobs and handle failures automatically. AWS Prescriptive Guidance also shows ETL pipelines that move data from Amazon S3 through AWS Glue and onward in a Step Functions workflow.

AWS Glue workflows are also correct because AWS documentation states that Glue workflows can create and visualize complex ETL activities involving multiple jobs, crawlers, and triggers. They provide a graph of dependencies and can manage chained execution of interdependent tasks. That matches the requirement for serverless ETL orchestration.

Option C is not serverless because it requires an always-on EC2 instance. Option D can start jobs from events, but it is not the best service for managing complex chained dependencies and workflow state. Option E is primarily a CI/CD orchestration service, not the best fit for ETL job orchestration.

For Amazon QuickSight to access data in an Amazon S3 bucket that is encrypted with an AWS KMS key in a different AWS account, two distinct permissions are required: access to the S3 bucket and access to the KMS key.

First, the QuickSight service role in the BI-Account must be granted permission to access the S3 bucket. This is accomplished by adding the S3 bucket as a resource that the QuickSight service role can access and configuring the bucket policy in the Hub-Account to trust that role. Without explicit S3 permissions, QuickSight cannot read the objects.

Second, because the S3 bucket uses SSE-KMS encryption, QuickSight must also be authorized to use the KMS key. This requires adding an IAM policy to the QuickSight service role that allows kms:Decrypt and related permissions on the KMS key. Without KMS permissions, S3 access will fail even if the bucket policy allows access.

AWS RAM cannot be used to share S3 buckets, encryption of network connections is irrelevant to KMS permissions, and adding the KMS key as a “resource” alone is not sufficient without IAM permissions.

Therefore, Options B and D are correct.

The data engineer needs to ensure that the data in an Amazon EMR cluster is encrypted both at rest and in transit. The data in Amazon S3 is already encrypted using an AWS KMS key. To meet the requirements, the most suitable solution is to create an EMR security configuration that specifies the correct KMS key for at-rest encryption and use the PEM file for in-transit encryption.

Option C: Create an Amazon EMR security configuration. Specify the appropriate AWS KMS key for at-rest encryption for the S3 bucket. Specify the Amazon S3 path of the PEM file for in-transit encryption. Use the security configuration during EMR cluster creation.This option configures encryption for both data at rest (using KMS keys) and data in transit (using the PEM file for SSL/TLS encryption). This approach ensures that data is fully protected during storage and transfer.

Options A, B, and D either involve creating unnecessary additional security configurations or make inaccurate assumptions about the way encryption configurations are attached.

 Amazon Redshift Serverless is a new feature of Amazon Redshift that enables you to run SQL queries on data in Amazon S3 without provisioning or managing any clusters. You can use Amazon Redshift Serverless to automatically process the analytics workload, as it scales up and down the compute resources based on the query demand, and charges you only for the resources consumed. This solution will meet the requirements with the least operational overhead, as it does not require the data engineer to create, delete, pause, or resume any Redshift clusters, or to manage any infrastructure manually. You can use the Amazon Redshift Data API to run queries from the AWS CLI, AWS SDK, or AWS Lambda functions12.

The other options are not optimal for the following reasons:

A. Use Amazon Step Functions to pause the Redshift cluster when the analytics processes are complete and to resume the cluster to run new processes every month. This option is not recommended, as it would still require the data engineer to create and delete a new Redshift provisioned cluster every month, which can incur additional costs and time. Moreover, this option would require the data engineer to use Amazon Step Functions to orchestrate the workflow of pausing and resuming the cluster, which can add complexity and overhead.

C. Use the AWS CLI to automatically process the analytics workload. This option is vague and does not specify how the AWS CLI is used to process the analytics workload. The AWS CLI can be used to run queries on data in Amazon S3 using Amazon Redshift Serverless, Amazon Athena, or Amazon EMR, but each of these services has different features and benefits. Moreover, this option does not address the requirement of not managing the infrastructure manually, as the data engineer may still need to provision and configure some resources, such as Amazon EMR clusters or Amazon Athena workgroups.

D. Use AWS CloudFormation templates to automatically process the analytics workload. This option is also vague and does not specify how AWS CloudFormation templates are used to process the analytics workload. AWS CloudFormation is a service that lets you model and provision AWS resources using templates. You can use AWS CloudFormation templates to create and delete a Redshift provisioned cluster every month, or to create and configure other AWS resources, such as Amazon EMR, Amazon Athena, or Amazon Redshift Serverless. However, this option does not address the requirement of not managing the infrastructure manually, as the data engineer may still need to write and maintain the AWS CloudFormation templates, and to monitor the status and performance of the resources.

1: Amazon Redshift Serverless

2: Amazon Redshift Data API

Amazon Step Functions

AWS CLI

AWS CloudFormation

Option C (LAC-A) is the correct choice because the requirement is to always show the Region-level total even when the visual is drilled down into lower levels (for example, country → city → store). A simple calculated field (Option B) is computed at the row level and then aggregated by the visual, so it will change as the drill-down changes the grain. A table calculation (Option A) is evaluated based on the current visual layout and can vary with the fields placed in the visual, which makes it unreliable for enforcing a fixed “Region total regardless of drill-down.”

A level-aware calculation (aggregate) is specifically intended to “lock” an aggregation to a chosen dimensional level (here: Region). That means you can compute revenue aggregated at the Region level and reuse that value across lower drill levels without it recalculating at city/store granularity. A window LAC (LAC-W) is primarily for windowed analytics (running totals, period-over-period, rank, moving averages) over a partition/order, not for enforcing a fixed dimensional aggregation level. Therefore, LAC-A best matches the requirement.

The STL ALERT EVENT LOG table view records anomalies when the query optimizer identifies conditions that might indicate performance issues. These conditions include skewed data distribution, missing statistics, nested loop joins, and broadcasted data. The STL ALERT EVENT LOG table view can help the data engineer to identify and troubleshoot the root causes of performance issues and optimize the query execution plan. The other table views are not relevant for this requirement. STL USAGE CONTROL records the usage limits and quotas for Amazon Redshift resources. STL QUERY METRICS records the execution time and resource consumption of queries. STL PLAN INFO records the query execution plan and the steps involved in each query. References:

STL ALERT EVENT LOG

System Tables and Views

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide

The correct answer is A because the requirement specifically says that traffic between Lambda and the Amazon Redshift Data API must remain on the AWS network. AWS documentation states that you can call the Redshift Data API with Amazon VPC endpoints and that this keeps traffic between applications in the VPC and the Data API in the AWS network without public IP addresses. The Data API also removes the need to manage database drivers, persistent connections, and network configuration from Lambda. Creating a VPC endpoint for Lambda is not how Lambda privately reaches Redshift Data API. ODBC and JDBC drivers introduce connection management and do not address the stated Data API traffic requirement. Therefore, Data API plus the Redshift Data API VPC endpoint is correct.

The correct answer is C because SNS Publish and PublishBatch operations are data-plane operations, not ordinary management events. AWS CloudTrail documentation specifically lists Amazon SNS Publish and PublishBatch API operations on topics as supported data events. Because the company already has a CloudTrail Lake event data store, the lowest-operational-overhead approach is to enable the relevant SNS data events and query them directly in CloudTrail Lake. Creating Glue Data Catalog tables and querying with Athena adds unnecessary cataloging and query infrastructure. Management events would not satisfy the requirement to audit the requested SNS publishing actions. Therefore, the precise configuration is SNS data events plus CloudTrail Lake querying.

A data mesh approach in AWS typically uses Lake Formation for domain-level access control and Athena for cross-domain querying through federated views. CloudTrail ensures auditing.

“For data mesh architectures, use AWS Lake Formation for fine-grained access control and Athena views for cross-domain analysis. Enable CloudTrail to audit access.”

– Ace the AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate Certification - version 2 - apple.pdf

This ensures scalability, security, and compliance across domains.

For query workloads on S3 data that depend on date-based filters, partitioning by order date optimizes performance and cost because Athena reads only the relevant partitions.

Athena scales automatically and doesn’t degrade with increasing data size when partitions are managed efficiently.

“Partitioning data in Amazon S3 based on query predicates such as order date improves Athena query performance and reduces scanned data volume.”

– Ace the AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate Certification - version 2 - apple.pdf

This is the most cost-effective and scalable option for date-based queries.

In AWS Glue’s SQL implementation (Spark SQL-compatible), the MERGE INTO statement supports conditional actions.

The clause WHEN MATCHED THEN DELETE deletes matching records from the target table (accounts) where the join condition is true.

“A MERGE INTO statement can perform updates, inserts, or deletes based on the match condition between source and target tables.”

– Ace the AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate Certification - version 2 - apple.pdf

In AWS Glue, table partitions are managed as metadata objects within the AWS Glue Data Catalog. To add a new partition to an existing table, the correct and supported approach is to use the AWS Glue Data Catalog API, such as the CreatePartition operation, or equivalent console or SDK actions.

Updating the table schema alone does not create partitions or inform Glue about new partition values. Editing metadata files directly in Amazon S3 is unsupported and can corrupt the Data Catalog. Manually modifying the S3 bucket structure without registering partitions in Glue will result in Athena and other query engines being unable to recognize the partitions.

By adding partitions through the Glue Data Catalog API, query engines such as Amazon Athena and Amazon Redshift Spectrum can perform partition pruning, which significantly improves query performance by scanning only relevant data.

This method aligns with AWS best practices, ensures metadata consistency, and avoids unnecessary operational risk. Therefore, Option C is the correct solution.

Option C is correct because the company only needs to keep the original files for 90 days and then delete them. AWS states that S3 Lifecycle can be used to delete expired objects automatically, which directly matches this requirement. There is no need to transition the objects to another storage class because the files are not needed beyond day 90. Adding a transition step would add complexity and, in this case, would not improve cost-effectiveness.

Option A is not optimal because S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval has a 90-day minimum storage duration and is intended for longer-term archival. Transitioning objects right before deleting them is unnecessary overhead and can add minimum-duration charges. Option B is incorrect because Object Lock is for retention and write-once-read-many protection, not for normal temporary retention with lowest cost. Option D is also less cost-effective because S3 Intelligent-Tiering is useful when access patterns are uncertain, but here the retention period and deletion timing are already known. The simplest and cheapest solution is to keep the originals in S3 Standard for the required 90 days and then expire them with Lifecycle.

Scheduling an AWS Glue crawler to periodically update the Data Catalog automates the process of detecting new partitions and updating the catalog, which minimizes manual maintenance and operational overhead.

Problem Analysis:

The goal is to create a new empty table in Athena with the same schema as an existing table (old_table).

The solution must avoid copying any data.

Key Considerations:

CREATE TABLE AS (CTAS) is commonly used in Athena for creating new tables based on an existing table.

Adding the WITH NO DATA clause ensures only the schema is copied, without transferring any data.

Solution Analysis:

Option A: Copies both schema and data. Does not meet the requirement for an empty table.

Option B: Inserts data into an existing table, which does not create a new table.

Option C: Creates an empty table but does not copy the schema.

Option D: Creates a new table with the same schema and ensures it is empty by using WITH NO DATA.

Final Recommendation:

Use D. CREATE TABLE new_table AS (SELECT * FROM old_table) WITH NO DATA to create an empty table with the same schema.

Athena CTAS Queries

CREATE TABLE Statement in Athena

Option C is correct because the requirement is to verify that at least 90% of values in the Email column are valid email addresses. In AWS Glue Data Quality, rules are written in DQDL, and ColumnValues is the rule component used to validate whether column values satisfy a condition or pattern. AWS Glue Data Quality documentation explains that DQDL is the language used to define rules, and it specifically notes that ColumnValues rules can evaluate column content and that NULL values do not pass during comparisons. That is important here because the problem explicitly says the column contains null entries and invalid email values. A threshold of > 0.9 means the rule passes only when more than 90% of rows satisfy the email-validation condition.

Option A is incorrect because Uniqueness checks the percentage of values that are unique, not whether values are valid email addresses. AWS documents Uniqueness as measuring how many values occur exactly once, which is unrelated to email-format validity. Option D has the same issue because UniqueValueRatio addresses uniqueness characteristics, not format validation. Option B uses the right rule family but the wrong threshold because > 0.1 would require only 10% valid values. Therefore, ColumnValues with a threshold greater than 0.9 is the correct choice.

This solution will meet the requirements with the least operational overhead because it uses the AWS Glue Data Catalog as the central metadata repository for data sources that run in the AWS Cloud. The AWS Glue Data Catalog is a fully managed service that provides a unified view of your data assets across AWS and on-premises data sources. It stores the metadata of your data in tables, partitions, and columns, and enables you to access and query your data using various AWS services, such as Amazon Athena, Amazon EMR, and Amazon Redshift Spectrum. You can use AWS Glue crawlers to connect to multiple data stores, such as Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon S3, and to update the Data Catalog with metadata changes. AWS Glue crawlers can automatically discover the schema and partition structure of your data, and create or update the corresponding tables in the Data Catalog. You can schedule the crawlers to run periodically to update the metadata catalog, and configure them to detect changes to the source metadata, such as new columns, tables, or partitions12.

The other options are not optimal for the following reasons:

A. Use Amazon Aurora as the data catalog. Create AWS Lambda functions that will connect to the data catalog. Configure the Lambda functions to gather the metadata information from multiple sources and to update the Aurora data catalog. Schedule the Lambda functions to run periodically. This option is not recommended, as it would require more operational overhead to create and manage an Amazon Aurora database as the data catalog, and to write and maintain AWS Lambda functions to gather and update the metadata information from multiple sources. Moreover, this option would not leverage the benefits of the AWS Glue Data Catalog, such as data cataloging, data transformation, and data governance.

C. Use Amazon DynamoDB as the data catalog. Create AWS Lambda functions that will connect to the data catalog. Configure the Lambda functions to gather the metadata information from multiple sources and to update the DynamoDB data catalog. Schedule the Lambda functions to run periodically. This option is also not recommended, as it would require more operational overhead to create and manage an Amazon DynamoDB table as the data catalog, and to write and maintain AWS Lambda functions to gather and update the metadata information from multiple sources. Moreover, this option would not leverage the benefits of the AWS Glue Data Catalog, such as data cataloging, data transformation, and data governance.

D. Use the AWS Glue Data Catalog as the central metadata repository. Extract the schema for Amazon RDS and Amazon Redshift sources, and build the Data Catalog. Use AWS Glue crawlers for data that is in Amazon S3 to infer the schema and to automatically update the Data Catalog. This option is not optimal, as it would require more manual effort to extract the schema for Amazon RDS and Amazon Redshift sources, and to build the Data Catalog. This option would not take advantage of the AWS Glue crawlers’ ability to automatically discover the schema and partition structure of your data from various data sources, and to create or update the corresponding tables in the Data Catalog.

1: AWS Glue Data Catalog

2: AWS Glue Crawlers

Amazon Aurora

AWS Lambda

Amazon DynamoDB

AWS Glue DataBrew provides a no-code data preparation and validation interface. It allows you to set data profiling, completeness checks, and numeric range validations directly through its UI—ideal for IoT validation use cases.

“AWS Glue DataBrew enables users to define validation rules such as completeness and value range checks without writing code.”

– Ace the AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate Certification - version 2 - apple.pdf

This fulfills the requirement for minimal coding and automatic data quality flagging.

Option C is the correct answer because the Map state is designed to process a collection of data in parallel by applying the same transformation to each element. The Map state can invoke a nested workflow for each element, which can be another state machine or a Lambda function. The Map state will wait until all the parallel executions are completed before moving to the next state.

Option A is incorrect because the Parallel state is used to execute multiple branches of logic concurrently, not to process a collection of data. The Parallel state can have different branches with different logic and states, whereas the Map state has only one branch that is applied to each element of the collection.

Option B is incorrect because the Choice state is used to make decisions based on a comparison of a value to a set of rules. The Choice state does not process any data or invoke any nested workflows.

Option D is incorrect because the Wait state is used to delay the state machine from continuing for a specified time. The Wait state does not process any data or invoke any nested workflows.

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide, Chapter 5: Data Orchestration, Section 5.3: AWS Step Functions, Pages 131-132

Building Batch Data Analytics Solutions on AWS, Module 5: Data Orchestration, Lesson 5.2: AWS Step Functions, Pages 9-10

AWS Documentation Overview, AWS Step Functions Developer Guide, Step Functions Concepts, State Types, Map State, Pages 1-3

Amazon Macie is a fully managed data security and privacy service that uses machine learning to automatically discover, classify, and protect sensitive data in AWS, such as PII. By configuring Macie for automated sensitive data discovery, the company can minimize manual intervention while ensuring PII is identified before data is shared.

To create a new table named cities_usa in Amazon Athena based on a subset of data from the existing cities_world table, you should use an INSERT INTO statement combined with a SELECT statement to filter only the records where the country is ' usa ' . The correct SQL syntax would be:

Option A: INSERT INTO cities_usa (city, state) SELECT city, state FROM cities_world WHERE country= ' usa ' ;This statement inserts only the cities and states where the country column has a value of ' usa ' from the cities_world table into the cities_usa table. This is a correct approach to create a new table with data filtered from an existing table in Athena.

Options B, C, and D are incorrect due to syntax errors or incorrect SQL usage (e.g., the MOVE command or the use of UPDATE in a non-relevant context).

Amazon RDS controls network-level access through security groups, which act as virtual firewalls. To allow an EC2 instance to connect to an RDS database using JDBC, the RDS security group must explicitly allow inbound traffic from the EC2 instance or its associated security group on the appropriate database port.

IAM roles do not control network connectivity to RDS databases. The ec2_authorized_hosts parameter does not exist for RDS engines. The Amazon RDS Data API is not supported for standard JDBC connections and is only available for Aurora Serverless v1 and v2.

Updating the RDS security group is the correct and simplest approach. By adding an inbound rule that allows traffic from the EC2 instance’s security group, the application can securely connect to the database without additional configuration or restarts.

Therefore, Option C is the correct solution.

Option B is correct because Amazon MSK Replicator is the AWS-managed feature specifically designed to reliably replicate data across Amazon MSK clusters in different AWS Regions. AWS states that MSK Replicator can be used to build regionally resilient streaming applications for availability and business continuity, which directly supports the disaster recovery requirement. It is also the choice with the least operational effort because it avoids deploying and managing self-hosted replication tools such as Kafka Connect or MirrorMaker 2. AWS documentation for cross-Region setup also shows support for secure connectivity and notes that MSK environments support IAM, TLS, and SASL/SCRAM authentication schemes for private connectivity scenarios.

Option A and C would require the company to deploy, scale, patch, and monitor custom replication infrastructure in every Region, which increases operational overhead. Option D is not appropriate because Kinesis Data Firehose is not the native service for replicating data between MSK clusters. For ordering and consistency, Kafka-based replication preserves partitioned stream semantics better than mixing in a different streaming service. Therefore, a mesh of MSK Replicator relationships between regional MSK clusters is the best AWS-native answer for near real-time, encrypted, cross-Region replication with minimal administration.

The requirement is to update the AWS Glue Data Catalog incrementally based on S3 events. Using an S3 event-based approach is the most automated and operationally efficient solution.

A. Create an S3 event-based AWS Glue crawler:

An event-based Glue crawler can automatically update the Data Catalog when new data arrives in the S3 bucket. This ensures incremental updates with minimal operational overhead.

Athena data source is a solution that allows you to use Spark to access Athena by using the Athena JDBC driver and the Spark SQL interface. You can use the Athena data source to create Spark DataFrames from Athena tables, run SQL queries on the DataFrames, and write the results back to Athena. The Athena data source supports various data formats, such as CSV, JSON, ORC, and Parquet, and also supports partitioned and bucketed tables. The Athena data source is a cost-effective and scalable way to use Spark to access Athena, as it does not require any additional infrastructure or services, and you only pay for the data scanned by Athena.

The other options are not solutions that give the company the ability to use Spark to access Athena. Option A, Athena query settings, is a feature that allows you to configure various parameters for your Athena queries, such as the output location, the encryption settings, the query timeout, and the workgroup. Option B, Athena workgroup, is a feature that allows you to isolate and manage your Athena queries and resources, such as the query history, the query notifications, the query concurrency, and the query cost. Option D, Athena query editor, is a feature that allows you to write and run SQL queries on Athena using the web console or the API. None of these options enable you to use Spark instead of SQL to generate analytics on Athena. References:

Using Apache Spark in Amazon Athena

Athena JDBC Driver

Spark SQL

Athena query settings

[Athena workgroups]

[Athena query editor]

Amazon Redshift data sharing now supports bi-directional and selective write access through datashare namespaces.

This allows centralized management of permissions from headquarters while giving Regional clusters controlled write access to specific datasets — adhering to least privilege and minimizing admin overhead.

“Use Redshift datashares with write permissions and namespaces to enable controlled cross-Region data collaboration while maintaining centralized governance.”

– Ace the AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate Certification - version 2 - apple.pdf

This configuration ensures near real-time inventory updates, centralized access management, and compliance with AWS security best practices.

The optimal solution for near-real-time querying and visualization of logs is to integrate Amazon CloudWatch Logs with Amazon OpenSearch Service using subscription filters, which stream the logs directly into OpenSearch for querying and dashboarding:

“Use OpenSearch Service with CloudWatch Logs and create a subscription filter to stream log data in near real time into OpenSearch. Then use OpenSearch dashboards for visualization.”

– Ace the AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate Certification - version 2 - apple.pdf

This approach offers low latency and avoids batch exports, unlike the scheduled Athena + S3 pattern.

 Partitioning the data in the S3 bucket can improve the performance of AWS Glue jobs by reducing the amount of data that needs to be scanned and processed. By organizing the data by year, month, and day, the AWS Glue job can use partition pruning to filter out irrelevant data and only read the data that matches the query criteria. This can speed up the data processing and reduce the cost of running the AWS Glue job. Increasing the AWS Glue instance size by scaling up the worker type can also improve the performance of AWS Glue jobs by providing more memory and CPU resources for the Spark execution engine. This can help the AWS Glue job handle larger data sets and complex transformations more efficiently. The other options are either incorrect or irrelevant, as they do not affect the performance of the AWS Glue jobs. Converting the AWS Glue schema to the DynamicFrame schema class does not improve the performance, but rather provides additional functionality and flexibility for data manipulation. Adjusting the AWS Glue job scheduling frequency does not improve the performance, but rather reduces the frequency of data updates. Modifying the IAM role that grants access to AWS Glue does not improve the performance, but rather affects the security and permissions of the AWS Glue service. References:

Optimising Glue Scripts for Efficient Data Processing: Part 1 (Section: Partitioning Data in S3)

Best practices to optimize cost and performance for AWS Glue streaming ETL jobs (Section: Development tools)

Monitoring with AWS Glue job run insights (Section: Requirements)

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide (Chapter 5, page 133)

Amazon S3 natively supports checksum validation during uploads when objects are uploaded by using the AWS SDK. The SDK can automatically calculate a checksum, such as CRC32, on the client side and send it with the upload request. Amazon S3 validates the checksum upon receipt and stores it with the object, ensuring that the data uploaded is exactly the same as the source data.

Storing the checksum in the S3 object metadata provides a lightweight and cost-effective way to verify data integrity without requiring additional compute, storage, or post-processing steps. This approach validates the logs at upload time, which is the most efficient and reliable method.

Using AWS Lambda to calculate SHA-256 checksums would require additional compute, orchestration, and storage, increasing cost and operational complexity. Amazon S3 Object Lock enforces immutability and retention but does not validate data integrity between source and destination. Governance or compliance mode Object Lock cannot detect whether uploaded data matches the original logs.

Therefore, using the AWS SDK checksum validation during upload is the simplest, most efficient, and AWS-recommended approach for ensuring log integrity.

The Choice state type in AWS Step Functions is designed to perform branching logic, i.e., routing execution to different paths based on conditions in the input data.

“The Step Functions Choice state lets you branch the execution flow depending on values in the state’s input. This allows you to run different processing logic based on dynamic conditions like values in the input JSON.”

– Ace the AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate Certification - version 2 - apple.pdf

This makes Choice the correct answer for content-driven conditional workflows.

Problem Analysis:

The company runs a daily AWS Glue ETL pipeline to clean and transform files received in an S3 bucket.

If a file is incomplete or empty, the previous day’s file should be retained.

Need a solution to validate files before overwriting the existing file.

Key Considerations:

Automate data validation with minimal human intervention.

Use built-in AWS Glue capabilities for ease of integration.

Ensure robust validation for missing or incomplete data.

Solution Analysis:

Option A: Lambda Function for Validation

Lambda can validate files, but it would require custom code.

Does not leverage AWS Glue’s built-in features, adding operational complexity.

Option B: AWS Glue Data Quality Rules

AWS Glue Data Quality allows defining Data Quality Definition Language (DQDL) rules.

Rules can validate if required fields are missing or if the file is empty.

Automatically integrates into the existing ETL pipeline.

If validation fails, retain the previous day’s file.

Option C: AWS Glue Studio with Filling Missing Values

Modifying ETL code to fill missing values with most common values risks introducing inaccuracies.

Does not handle empty files effectively.

Option D: Athena Query for Validation

Athena can drop rows with missing values, but this is a post-hoc solution.

Requires manual intervention to copy the corrected file to S3, increasing complexity.

Final Recommendation:

Use AWS Glue Data Quality to define validation rules in DQDL for identifying missing or incomplete data.

This solution integrates seamlessly with the ETL pipeline and minimizes manual effort.

Implementation Steps:

Enable AWS Glue Data Quality in the existing ETL pipeline.

Define DQDL Rules, such as:

Check if a file is empty.

Verify required fields are present and non-null.

Configure the pipeline to proceed with overwriting only if the file passes validation.

In case of failure, retain the previous day’s file.

AWS Glue Data Quality Overview

Defining DQDL Rules

AWS Glue Studio Documentation

 The Amazon Redshift Data API is a built-in feature that allows you to run SQL queries on Amazon Redshift data with web services-based applications, such as AWS Lambda, Amazon SageMaker notebooks, and AWS Cloud9. The Data API does not require a persistent connection to your database, and it provides a secure HTTP endpoint and integration with AWS SDKs. You can use the endpoint to run SQL statements without managing connections. The Data API also supports both Amazon Redshift provisioned clusters and Redshift Serverless workgroups. The Data API is the best solution for running real-time queries on the financial data from within the trading application, as it has the least operational overhead compared to the other options.

Option A is not the best solution, as establishing WebSocket connections to Amazon Redshift would require more configuration and maintenance than using the Data API. WebSocket connections are also not supported by Amazon Redshift clusters or serverless workgroups.

Option C is not the best solution, as setting up JDBC connections to Amazon Redshift would also require more configuration and maintenance than using the Data API. JDBC connections are also not supported by Redshift Serverless workgroups.

Option D is not the best solution, as storing frequently accessed data in Amazon S3 and using Amazon S3 Select to run the queries would introduce additional latency and complexity than using the Data API. Amazon S3 Select is also not optimized for real-time queries, as it scans the entire object before returning the results. References:

Using the Amazon Redshift Data API

Calling the Data API

Amazon Redshift Data API Reference

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide

The best solution for managing SSL/TLS certificates on EC2 instances with minimal operational overhead is to use AWS Certificate Manager (ACM). ACM simplifies certificate management by automating the provisioning, renewal, and deployment of certificates.

AWS Certificate Manager (ACM):

ACM manages SSL/TLS certificates for EC2 and other AWS resources, including automatic certificate renewal. This reduces the need for manual management and avoids operational complexity.

ACM also integrates with other AWS services to simplify secure connections between AWS infrastructure and customer-managed environments.

AWS Lake Formation is a service that allows you to easily set up, secure, and manage data lakes. One of the features of Lake Formation is row-level security, which enables you to control access to specific rows or columns of data based on the identity or role of the user. This feature is useful for scenarios where you need to restrict access to sensitive or regulated data, such as customer data from different countries. By registering the S3 bucket as a data lake location in Lake Formation, you can use the Lake Formation console or APIs to define and apply row-level security policies to the data in the bucket. You can also use Lake Formation blueprints to automate the ingestion and transformation of data from various sources into the data lake. This solution requires the least operational effort compared to the other options, as it does not involve creating or moving data, or managing multiple tables, views, or roles. References:

AWS Lake Formation

Row-Level Security

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide, Chapter 4: Data Lakes and Data Warehouses, Section 4.2: AWS Lake Formation

To reclaim the most storage space from a materialized view in Amazon Redshift, you should use a DELETE operation that removes all rows from the view. The most efficient way to remove all rows is to use a condition that always evaluates to true, such as 1=1. This will delete all rows without needing to evaluate each row individually based on specific column values like load_date.

Option A: DELETE FROM materialized_view_name WHERE 1=1;This statement will delete all rows in the materialized view and free up the space. Since materialized views in Redshift store precomputed data, performing a DELETE operation will remove all stored rows.

Other options either involve inappropriate SQL statements (e.g., VACUUM in option C is used for reclaiming storage space in tables, not materialized views), or they don’t remove data effectively in the context of a materialized view (e.g., TRUNCATE cannot be used directly on a materialized view).

In Amazon Athena, you can use CREATE TABLE AS SELECT with WITH NO DATA to create an empty copy of an existing table’s schema:

“The query CREATE TABLE new_table AS SELECT * FROM old_table WITH NO DATA; creates a new table with the same schema but without copying over the data.”

– Ace the AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate Certification - version 2 - apple.pdf

This is the most efficient way to create an empty version of the existing table.

Problem Analysis:

The company uses AWS Glue for ETL pipelines and must enforce data quality checks during pipeline execution.

The goal is to implement quality checks with minimal implementation effort.

Key Considerations:

AWS Glue provides an Evaluate Data Quality transform that allows for defining quality checks directly in the pipeline.

DQDL (Data Quality Definition Language) simplifies the process by allowing declarative rule definitions.

Solution Analysis:

Option A: SQL Transform

SQL queries can implement rules but require manual effort for each rule and do not integrate natively with Glue.

Option B: Evaluate Data Quality Transform + DQDL

AWS Glue’s built-in Evaluate Data Quality transform is designed for this use case.

Allows defining thresholds and rules in DQDL with minimal coding effort.

Option C: Custom Transform with PyDeequ

PyDeequ is a powerful library but adds unnecessary complexity compared to Glue’s native features.

Option D: Custom Transform with Great Expectations

Similar to PyDeequ, Great Expectations adds operational complexity and external dependencies.

Final Recommendation:

Use the Evaluate Data Quality transform with DQDL to implement data quality rules in AWS Glue pipelines.

AWS Glue Data Quality

DQDL Syntax and Examples

AWS Glue Studio Documentation

The streaming ingestion feature of Amazon Redshift enables you to ingest data from streaming sources, such as Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, into Amazon Redshift tables in near real-time. You can use the streaming ingestion feature to process the streaming data from the wearable devices, hospital equipment, and patient records. The streaming ingestion feature also supports incremental updates, which means you can append new data or update existing data in the Amazon Redshift tables. This way, you can store the data in an Amazon Redshift Serverless warehouse and support near real-time analytics of the streaming data and the previous day’s data. This solution meets the requirements with the least operational overhead, as it does not require any additional services or components to ingest and process the streaming data. The other options are either not feasible or not optimal. Loading data into Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose and then into Amazon Redshift (option A) would introduce additional latency and cost, as well as require additional configuration and management. Loading data into Amazon S3 and then using the COPY command to load the data into Amazon Redshift (option C) would also introduce additional latency and cost, as well as require additional storage space and ETL logic. Using the Amazon Aurora zero-ETL integration with Amazon Redshift (option D) would not work, as it requires the data to be stored in Amazon Aurora first, which is not the case for the streaming data from the healthcare company. References:

Using streaming ingestion with Amazon Redshift

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide, Chapter 3: Data Ingestion and Transformation, Section 3.5: Amazon Redshift Streaming Ingestion

Option D is the best solution to meet the requirements with the least operational overhead because AWS Lake Formation is a fully managed service that simplifies the process of building, securing, and managing data lakes. AWS Lake Formation allows you to define granular data access policies at the row and column level for different users and groups. AWS Lake Formation also integrates with Amazon Athena, Amazon Redshift Spectrum, and Apache Hive on Amazon EMR, enabling these services to access the data in the data lake through AWS Lake Formation.

Option A is not a good solution because S3 access policies cannot restrict data access by rows and columns. S3 access policies are based on the identity and permissions of the requester, the bucket and object ownership, and the object prefix and tags. S3 access policies cannot enforce fine-grained data access control at the row and column level.

Option B is not a good solution because it involves using Apache Ranger and Apache Pig, which are not fully managed services and require additional configuration and maintenance. Apache Ranger is a framework that provides centralized security administration for data stored in Hadoop clusters, such as Amazon EMR. Apache Ranger can enforce row-level and column-level access policies for Apache Hive tables. However, Apache Ranger is not a native AWS service and requires manual installation and configuration on Amazon EMR clusters. Apache Pig is a platform that allows you to analyze large data sets using a high-level scripting language called Pig Latin. Apache Pig can access data stored in Amazon S3 and process it using Apache Hive. However, Apache Pig is not a native AWS service and requires manual installation and configuration on Amazon EMR clusters.

Option C is not a good solution because Amazon Redshift is not a suitable service for data lake storage. Amazon Redshift is a fully managed data warehouse service that allows you to run complex analytical queries using standard SQL. Amazon Redshift can enforce row-level and column-level access policies for different users and groups. However, Amazon Redshift is not designed to store and process large volumes of unstructured or semi-structured data, which are typical characteristics of data lakes. Amazon Redshift is also more expensive and less scalable than Amazon S3 for data lake storage.

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide

What Is AWS Lake Formation? - AWS Lake Formation

Using AWS Lake Formation with Amazon Athena - AWS Lake Formation

Using AWS Lake Formation with Amazon Redshift Spectrum - AWS Lake Formation

Using AWS Lake Formation with Apache Hive on Amazon EMR - AWS Lake Formation

Using Bucket Policies and User Policies - Amazon Simple Storage Service

Apache Ranger

Apache Pig

What Is Amazon Redshift? - Amazon Redshift

AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. You can use Lambda to create functions that perform custom logic and integrate with other AWS services, such as API Gateway. Lambda automatically scales your application by running code in response to each trigger. You pay only for the compute time you consume1.

Amazon ECS is a fully managed container orchestration service that allows you to run and scale containerized applications on AWS. You can use ECS to deploy, manage, and scale Docker containers using either Amazon EC2 instances or AWS Fargate, a serverless compute engine for containers2.

Amazon EKS is a fully managed Kubernetes service that allows you to run Kubernetes clusters on AWS without needing to install, operate, or maintain your own Kubernetes control plane. You can use EKS to deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications using Kubernetes on AWS3.

The solution that meets the requirements with the least operational overhead is to create an AWS Lambda Python function with provisioned concurrency. This solution has the following advantages:

It does not require you to provision, manage, or scale any servers or clusters, as Lambda handles all the infrastructure for you. This reduces the operational complexity and cost of running your code.

It allows you to write your Python script as a Lambda function and integrate it with API Gateway using a simple configuration. API Gateway can invoke your Lambda function synchronously or asynchronously, and return the results to the frontend website.

It ensures that your Lambda function is ready to respond to API requests without any cold start delays, by using provisioned concurrency. Provisioned concurrency is a feature that keeps your function initialized and hyper-ready to respond in double-digit milliseconds. You can specify the number of concurrent executions that you want to provision for your function.

Option A is incorrect because it requires you to deploy a custom Python script on an Amazon ECS cluster. This solution has the following disadvantages:

It requires you to provision, manage, and scale your own ECS cluster, either using EC2 instances or Fargate. This increases the operational complexity and cost of running your code.

It requires you to package your Python script as a Docker container image and store it in a container registry, such as Amazon ECR or Docker Hub. This adds an extra step to your deployment process.

It requires you to configure your ECS cluster to integrate with API Gateway, either using an Application Load Balancer or a Network Load Balancer. This adds another layer of complexity to your architecture.

Option C is incorrect because it requires you to deploy a custom Python script that can integrate with API Gateway on Amazon EKS. This solution has the following disadvantages:

It requires you to provision, manage, and scale your own EKS cluster, either using EC2 instances or Fargate. This increases the operational complexity and cost of running your code.

It requires you to package your Python script as a Docker container image and store it in a container registry, such as Amazon ECR or Docker Hub. This adds an extra step to your deployment process.

It requires you to configure your EKS cluster to integrate with API Gateway, either using an Application Load Balancer, a Network Load Balancer, or a service of type LoadBalancer. This adds another layer of complexity to your architecture.

Option D is incorrect because it requires you to create an AWS Lambda function and ensure that the function is warm by scheduling an Amazon EventBridge rule to invoke the Lambda function every 5 minutes by using mock events. This solution has the following disadvantages:

It does not guarantee that your Lambda function will always be warm, as Lambda may scale down your function if it does not receive any requests for a long period of time. This may cause cold start delays when your function is invoked by API Gateway.

It incurs unnecessary costs, as you pay for the compute time of your Lambda function every time it is invoked by the EventBridge rule, even if it does not perform any useful work1.

1: AWS Lambda - Features

2: Amazon Elastic Container Service - Features

3: Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service - Features

[4]: Building API Gateway REST API with Lambda integration - Amazon API Gateway

[5]: Improving latency with Provisioned Concurrency - AWS Lambda

[6]: Integrating Amazon ECS with Amazon API Gateway - Amazon Elastic Container Service

[7]: Integrating Amazon EKS with Amazon API Gateway - Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service

[8]: Managing concurrency for a Lambda function - AWS Lambda

The correct answer is A because Athena can query new partitions only after the partitions exist in the AWS Glue Data Catalog. Waiting for a nightly crawler creates unnecessary delay. The direct fix is to update the Data Catalog as part of the ETL process by calling the AWS Glue CreatePartition API immediately after each new S3 partition is written. AWS Glue documentation states that CreatePartition creates a new partition and requires the database name, table name, and partition input structure. Copying data to another bucket does not register partitions. DynamoDB Streams is unrelated unless the partition lifecycle is already stored in DynamoDB. StartImportLabelsTaskRun is not the API for partition registration. The correct operational pattern is event/write partition, then immediately register metadata.

Step 1: Understanding the Data Use Case

The company has data stored in an Amazon S3 bucket and needs to provide teams access for analysis, ensuring that PII data is not included in the analysis. The solution should be simple to implement and maintain, ensuring minimal operational overhead.

Step 2: Why Option D is Correct

Option D (AWS Glue DataBrew) allows you to visually prepare and transform data without needing to write code. By using a DataBrew job, the company can:

Automatically detect and separate PII data from non-PII data.

Store PII data in a second S3 bucket for security, while keeping the original S3 bucket clean for analysis.

This approach keeps operational overhead low by utilizing DataBrew ' s pre-built transformations and the easy-to-use interface for non-technical users. It also ensures compliance by separating sensitive PII data from the main dataset.

Step 3: Why Other Options Are Not Ideal

Option A (Amazon Macie) is a powerful tool for detecting sensitive data, but Macie doesn ' t inherently remove or mask PII. You would still need additional steps to clean the data after Macie identifies PII.

Option B (S3 Object Lambda with Amazon Comprehend) introduces more complexity by requiring custom logic at the point of data access. Amazon Comprehend can detect PII, but using S3 Object Lambda to filter data would involve more overhead.

Option C (Kinesis Data Firehose and Comprehend) is more suitable for real-time streaming data use cases rather than batch analysis. Setting up and managing a streaming solution like Kinesis adds unnecessary complexity.

Conclusion:

Using AWS Glue DataBrew provides a low-overhead, no-code solution to detect and separate PII data, ensuring the analysis teams only have access to non-sensitive data. This approach is simple, compliant, and easy to manage compared to other options.

 The best combination of resources to meet the requirements of high reliability, cost-optimization, and performance for running Apache Spark jobs on Amazon EMR is to use Amazon S3 as a persistent data store and Graviton instances for core nodes and task nodes.

Amazon S3 is a highly durable, scalable, and secure object storage service that can store any amount of data for a variety of use cases, including big data analytics1. Amazon S3 is a better choice than HDFS as a persistent data store for Amazon EMR, as it decouples the storage from the compute layer, allowing for more flexibility and cost-efficiency. Amazon S3 also supports data encryption, versioning, lifecycle management, and cross-region replication1. Amazon EMR integrates seamlessly with Amazon S3, using EMR File System (EMRFS) to access data stored in Amazon S3 buckets2. EMRFS also supports consistent view, which enables Amazon EMR to provide read-after-write consistency for Amazon S3 objects that are accessed through EMRFS2.

Graviton instances are powered by Arm-based AWS Graviton2 processors that deliver up to 40% better price performance over comparable current generation x86-based instances3. Graviton instances are ideal for running workloads that are CPU-bound, memory-bound, or network-bound, such as big data analytics, web servers, and open-source databases3. Graviton instances are compatible with Amazon EMR, and can be used for both core nodes and task nodes. Core nodes are responsible for running the data processing frameworks, such as Apache Spark, and storing data in HDFS or the local file system. Task nodes are optional nodes that can be added to a cluster to increase the processing power and throughput. By using Graviton instances for both core nodes and task nodes, you can achieve higher performance and lower cost than using x86-based instances.

Using Spot Instances for all primary nodes is not a good option, as it can compromise the reliability and availability of the cluster. Spot Instances are spare EC2 instances that are available at up to 90% discount compared to On-Demand prices, but they can be interrupted by EC2 with a two-minute notice when EC2 needs the capacity back. Primary nodes are the nodes that run the cluster software, such as Hadoop, Spark, Hive, and Hue, and are essential for the cluster operation. If a primary node is interrupted by EC2, the cluster will fail or become unstable. Therefore, it is recommended to use On-Demand Instances or Reserved Instances for primary nodes, and use Spot Instances only for task nodes that can tolerate interruptions. References:

Amazon S3 - Cloud Object Storage

EMR File System (EMRFS)

AWS Graviton2 Processor-Powered Amazon EC2 Instances

[Plan and Configure EC2 Instances]

[Amazon EC2 Spot Instances]

[Best Practices for Amazon EMR]

AWS Step Functions is a service that allows you to coordinate multiple AWS services into serverless workflows. You can use Step Functions to create state machines that define the sequence and logic of the tasks in your workflow. Step Functions supports various types of tasks, such as Lambda functions, AWS Glue jobs, Amazon EMR clusters, Amazon ECS tasks, etc. You can use Step Functions to monitor and troubleshoot your workflows, as well as to handle errors and retries.

Using an AWS Step Functions workflow that includes a state machine to run the Lambda function and then the AWS Glue job will meet the requirements with the least management overhead, as it leverages the serverless and managed capabilities of Step Functions. You do not need to write any code to orchestrate the tasks in your workflow, as you can use the Step Functions console or the AWS Serverless Application Model (AWS SAM) to define and deploy your state machine. You also do not need to provision or manage any servers or clusters, as Step Functions scales automatically based on the demand.

The other options are not as efficient as using an AWS Step Functions workflow. Using an Apache Airflow workflow that is deployed on an Amazon EC2 instance or on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) will require more management overhead, as you will need to provision, configure, and maintain the EC2 instance or the EKS cluster, as well as the Airflow components. You will also need to write and maintain the Airflow DAGs to orchestrate the tasks in your workflow. Using an AWS Glue workflow to run the Lambda function and then the AWS Glue job will not work, as AWS Glue workflows only support AWS Glue jobs and crawlers as tasks, not Lambda functions. References:

AWS Step Functions

AWS Glue

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide, Chapter 6: Data Integration and Transformation, Section 6.3: AWS Step Functions

For secure migration of data from an on-premises data center to AWS without using the public internet, AWS Direct Connect is the most secure and reliable method. Using Secrets Manager to store service account credentials ensures that the credentials are managed securely with automatic rotation.

AWS Direct Connect:

Direct Connect establishes a dedicated, private connection between the on-premises data center and AWS, avoiding the public internet. This is ideal for secure, high-speed data transfers.

In Amazon Redshift, a compound sort key is designed to optimize the performance of queries that use filtering and join conditions on the columns in the sort key. A compound sort key orders the data based on the first column, followed by the second, and so on. In the scenario given, the compound sort key consists of Region ID, Department ID, and Role ID. Therefore, queries that filter on the leading columns of the sort key are more likely to benefit from this order.

Option B: " Select * from Employee where Region ID= ' North America ' and Department ID=20; " This query will perform well because it uses both the Region ID and Department ID, which are the first two columns of the compound sort key. The order of the columns in the WHERE clause matches the order in the sort key, thus allowing the query to scan fewer rows and improve performance.

Option C: " Select * from Employee where Department ID=20 and Region ID= ' North America ' ; " This query also benefits from the compound sort key because it includes both Region ID and Department ID, which are the first two columns in the sort key. Although the order in the WHERE clause does not match exactly, Amazon Redshift will still leverage the sort key to reduce the amount of data scanned, improving query speed.

Options A, D, and E are less optimal because they do not utilize the sort key as effectively:

Option A only filters by the Region ID, which may still use the sort key but does not take full advantage of the compound nature.

Option D uses only Role ID, the last column in the compound sort key, which will not benefit much from sorting since it is the third key in the sort order.

Option E filters on Region ID and Role ID but skips the Department ID column, making it less efficient for the compound sort key.

To perform cross-Region snapshot copying of an encrypted Redshift cluster, AWS documentation and the exam study guide clearly outline two essential steps:

You must create a snapshot copy grant in the destination Region. This allows Amazon Redshift to encrypt the snapshots using the specified AWS KMS key.

You must enable snapshot copying in the source Region and specify the name of the snapshot copy grant that was created in the destination Region.

From the study guide:

“To enable cross-region copy of encrypted snapshots, you must create a snapshot copy grant in the destination Region and enable snapshot copying in the source Region by specifying the snapshot copy grant name.”

– Ace the AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate Certification - version 2 - apple.pdf

Option E (Multi-AZ deployment) is not applicable to Amazon Redshift, which does not support Multi-AZ configurations like Amazon RDS.

Option B is most cost-effective because it combines a serverless ETL service for overnight processing with a serverless warehouse for partner SQL access during business hours. The material describes AWS Glue as a “fully managed, serverless, scalable ETL service” that can extract, transform, and load data with minimal operational overhead, which fits the requirement for multiple transformations and data cleaning.

For the SQL access layer, the study material highlights the cost advantage of Amazon Redshift Serverless: it automatically provisions and scales capacity and you pay only for the compute capacity provisioned, with no compute costs when no workloads are running. That directly supports “multiple business partners” querying during business hours while avoiding the always-on cost of a provisioned cluster.

Options C and D use a provisioned Redshift cluster, which is less cost-effective because capacity must be paid for even when partners are not querying. Option A adds EMR cluster management cost and operational overhead compared to using Glue for ETL.

Option A minimizes administration because it keeps one base IAM role for the pipeline and enforces regional locality at session time by attaching a session policy when the broker calls AssumeRole. This aligns with the security best practice of applying only what is necessary, because permissions should be limited to the exact scope required for the session. The material explicitly emphasizes the principle of least privilege, stating that permissions “should apply only to what is necessary,” and the most appropriate approach is to grant only the minimum actions needed for the job.

With session policies, the organization avoids creating and maintaining separate per-Region roles (Option B), avoids managing users and group memberships for federated sessions (Option C), and avoids individually attaching policies per engineer (Option D). Instead, the broker can dynamically apply a Region-specific restriction for each login, ensuring the temporary credentials are valid only for the engineer’s working Region. This design reduces ongoing operational burden while still enforcing strict locality controls through temporary, scoped credentials and least-privilege boundaries.

The correct answer is A because the pipeline requires scalable ingestion, PII removal, ETL transformation, centralized storage, and automatic retry handling. Amazon S3 is the correct landing and central storage layer for large hospital data files. AWS Glue ETL is appropriate for managed data transformation at this scale, and AWS Glue DataBrew is the best fit among the options for low-code data preparation and PII handling. Step Functions is the correct orchestration service because it supports retry policies for task states, parallel states, and map states without manual intervention. EC2 custom scripts and AWS Batch add more operational work. Lambda is not suitable for 5 GB per hospital with heavier transformation steps. Therefore, S3, Glue, DataBrew, and Step Functions is the least-operational-overhead design.

The RootDiskUsed metric for the MSK cluster indicates that the storage on the broker is reaching its capacity. The best solution is to expand the storage of the MSK broker and enable automatic storage expansion to prevent future alarms.

Expand MSK Broker Storage:

AWS Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (MSK) allows you to expand the broker storage to accommodate growing data volumes. Additionally, auto-expansion of storage can be configured to ensure that storage grows automatically as the data increases.

 An open source data lake format, such as Apache Parquet, Apache ORC, or Delta Lake, is a cost-effective way to perform a change data capture (CDC) operation on semi-structured data stored in Amazon S3. An open source data lake format allows you to query data directly from S3 using standard SQL, without the need to move or copy data to another service. An open source data lake format also supports schema evolution, meaning it can handle changes in the data structure over time. An open source data lake format also supports upserts, meaning it can insert new data and update existing data in the same operation, using a merge command. This way, you can efficiently capture the changes from the data source and apply them to the S3 data lake, without duplicating or losing any data.

The other options are not as cost-effective as using an open source data lake format, as they involve additional steps or costs. Option A requires you to create and maintain an AWS Lambda function, which can be complex and error-prone. AWS Lambda also has some limits on the execution time, memory, and concurrency, which can affect the performance and reliability of the CDC operation. Option B and D require you to ingest the data into a relational database service, such as Amazon RDS or Amazon Aurora, which can be expensive and unnecessary for semi-structured data. AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) can write the changed data to the data lake, but it also charges you for the data replication and transfer. Additionally, AWS DMS does not support JSON as a source data type, so you would need to convert the data to a supported format before using AWS DMS. References:

What is a data lake?

Choosing a data format for your data lake

Using the MERGE INTO command in Delta Lake

[AWS Lambda quotas]

[AWS Database Migration Service quotas]

Option C best matches the requirement of no new code with least operational effort because it keeps the analyst’s work inside the AWS-native, visual ETL experience and produces standardized outputs that data engineers can extend. The study material emphasizes that AWS provides visual data preparation capabilities that let users “clean and normalize data without writing any code,” which is exactly what the analyst needs before advanced engineering transformations begin.

Option A requires Python and Pandas, which directly violates the “does not require writing new code” requirement and introduces dependency management and debugging overhead. Option B uses multiple services (Canvas + Data Wrangler + Glue), which increases the number of moving parts, permissions, handoffs, and operational surface area compared to a single-service preparation approach. Option D offloads the entire preparation step to engineers, which increases operational effort and delays because the analyst cannot directly implement and iterate on standardization.

Using recipe-style transformations in the Glue visual interface aligns with the documented goal of simplifying data preparation workflows while enabling the engineering team to add more complex steps later in the pipeline.

AWS Step Functions allows you to orchestrate ETL jobs and workflows by integrating with AWS Glue and EventBridge. It supports both scheduled and event-driven executions with minimal operational overhead, making it ideal for hybrid triggering.

AWS Glue workflows are limited in orchestration logic.

MWAA (option B) is powerful but requires more infrastructure management.

EMR Serverless + Lambda (option D) is possible but involves more components.

“Use Step Functions to coordinate multiple services like Glue and EventBridge for event-driven or scheduled workflows.”

AWS Glue Detect PII transform is designed to identify sensitive data using custom pattern matching, making it well suited for detecting PII in proprietary or non-standard data formats. The transform integrates directly into AWS Glue ETL jobs and requires minimal configuration beyond defining the detection patterns.

Amazon Macie primarily relies on managed data identifiers and machine learning models optimized for common data formats such as JSON, CSV, and text. While Macie supports custom identifiers, it is less efficient for deeply proprietary formats and introduces additional service configuration.

Using AWS Lambda with custom regular expressions or Amazon Athena with SQL-based pattern matching would require building, operating, and maintaining custom logic across multiple buckets, increasing operational overhead and complexity.

AWS Glue provides a serverless, scalable, and centralized approach for PII detection as part of an existing data processing pipeline, making it the most operationally efficient solution for this requirement.

Therefore, Option A is the best answer.

Option B is the only solution that supports near real-time updates from a continuously changing source to Amazon Redshift. The requirement says the on-premises PostgreSQL database is “continuously updated” and the target must be updated “as quickly as possible.” Nightly full backups or nightly full loads (Options A and D) inherently introduce at least a daily lag, which violates the freshness requirement. Similarly, exporting with pg_dump and reloading with COPY (Option C) is a batch approach and does not provide continuous change propagation.

The study material explicitly positions AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for database migrations and highlights that it supports both full-load and change data capture (CDC), and that CDC enables continuous replication so ongoing changes can be applied after the initial load.

Therefore, a DMS task configured for full load + CDC provides the fastest ongoing synchronization pattern: it performs the initial migration and then continuously captures and applies changes so Redshift stays current with minimal delay compared to periodic batch reloads.

 Amazon Athena is a serverless interactive query service that allows you to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. Athena supports various data formats, such as CSV, JSON, ORC, Avro, and Parquet. However, not all data formats are equally efficient for querying. Some data formats, such as CSV and JSON, are row-oriented, meaning that they store data as a sequence of records, each with the same fields. Row-oriented formats are suitable for loading and exporting data, but they are not optimal for analytical queries that often access only a subset of columns. Row-oriented formats also do not support compression or encoding techniques that can reduce the data size and improve the query performance.

On the other hand, some data formats, such as ORC and Parquet, are column-oriented, meaning that they store data as a collection of columns, each with a specific data type. Column-oriented formats are ideal for analytical queries that often filter, aggregate, or join data by columns. Column-oriented formats also support compression and encoding techniques that can reduce the data size and improve the query performance. For example, Parquet supports dictionary encoding, which replaces repeated values with numeric codes, and run-length encoding, which replaces consecutive identical values with a single value and a count. Parquet also supports various compression algorithms, such as Snappy, GZIP, and ZSTD, that can further reduce the data size and improve the query performance.

Therefore, changing the data format from CSV to Parquet and applying Snappy compression will most speed up the Athena query performance. Parquet is a column-oriented format that allows Athena to scan only the relevant columns and skip the rest, reducing the amount of data read from S3. Snappy is a compression algorithm that reduces the data size without compromising the query speed, as it is splittable and does not require decompression before reading. This solution will also reduce the cost of Athena queries, as Athena charges based on the amount of data scanned from S3.

The other options are not as effective as changing the data format to Parquet and applying Snappy compression. Changing the data format from CSV to JSON and applying Snappy compression will not improve the query performance significantly, as JSON is also a row-oriented format that does not support columnar access or encoding techniques. Compressing the CSV files by using Snappy compression will reduce the data size, but it will not improve the query performance significantly, as CSV is still a row-oriented format that does not support columnar access or encoding techniques. Compressing the CSV files by using gzjg compression will reduce the data size, but it will degrade the query performance, as gzjg is not a splittable compression algorithm and requires decompression before reading. References:

Amazon Athena

Choosing the Right Data Format

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide, Chapter 5: Data Analysis and Visualization, Section 5.1: Amazon Athena

The most cost-effective solution in this case is to apply a lifecycle policy to transition records to Amazon S3 Standard-IA storage after 30 days. Here’s why:

Amazon S3 Lifecycle Policies: Amazon S3 offers lifecycle policies that allow you to automatically transition objects between different storage classes to optimize costs. For data that is frequently accessed in the first 30 days and infrequently accessed after that, transitioning from the S3 Standard storage class to S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) after 30 days makes the most sense. S3 Standard-IA is designed for data that is accessed less frequently but still needs to be retained, offering lower storage costs than S3 Standard with a retrieval cost for access.

Cost Optimization: S3 Standard-IA offers a lower price per GB than S3 Standard. Since the data will be accessed infrequently after 30 days, using S3 Standard-IA will lower storage costs while still allowing for immediate retrieval when necessary.

Compliance with Regulations: Since the records need to be immediately accessible for the first 30 days, the use of S3 Standard for that period ensures compliance with regulatory requirements. After 30 days, transitioning to S3 Standard-IA continues to meet access requirements for infrequent access while reducing storage costs.

Alternatives Considered:

Option B (S3 Intelligent-Tiering): While S3 Intelligent-Tiering automatically moves data between access tiers based on access patterns, it incurs a small monthly monitoring and automation charge per object. It could be a viable option, but transitioning data to S3 Standard-IA directly would be more cost-effective since the pattern of access is well-known (frequent for 30 days, infrequent thereafter).

Option C (S3 Glacier Deep Archive): Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest-cost storage class, but it is not suitable in this case because the data needs to be accessed immediately within 30 days and on an infrequent basis thereafter. Glacier Deep Archive requires hours for data retrieval, which is not acceptable for infrequent access needs.

Option D (S3 Standard-IA for all records): Using S3 Standard-IA for all records would result in higher costs for the first 30 days, as the data is frequently accessed. S3 Standard-IA incurs retrieval charges, making it less suitable for frequently accessed data.

Amazon S3 Lifecycle Policies

S3 Storage Classes

Cost Management and Data Optimization Using Lifecycle Policies

AWS Data Engineering Documentation

To build an enterprise data catalog with metadata for storage formats, the easiest and most efficient solution is using an AWS Glue crawler. The Glue crawler can scan Amazon S3 buckets and Amazon RDS databases to automatically create a data catalog that includes metadata such as the schema and storage format (e.g., CSV, Parquet, etc.). By using AWS Glue crawler classifiers, you can configure the crawler to recognize the format of the data and store this information directly in the catalog.

Option B: Use an AWS Glue crawler to build a data catalog. Use AWS Glue crawler classifiers to recognize the format of data and store the format in the catalog.This option meets the requirements with the least effort because Glue crawlers automate the discovery and cataloging of data from multiple sources, including S3 and RDS, while recognizing various file formats via classifiers.

Other options (A, C, D) involve additional manual steps, like having data stewards inspect the data, or using services like Amazon Macie that focus more on sensitive data detection rather than format cataloging.

AWS Glue streaming jobs are purpose-built for low-latency, near real-time ETL pipelines.

Glue Studio allows visual job authoring and supports complex transformations, including joins with Amazon RDS databases, through JDBC connectors.

Data can be written directly to S3 in Apache Parquet format using built-in AWS Glue support.

Options B and C are more suitable for batch or development/testing. Option D is for custom batch jobs, not real-time processing.

“You can use AWS Glue streaming jobs with Glue Studio to process streaming data, perform transformations, join with RDS data sources, and write results in formats like Parquet to S3.”

To prevent unintentional file deletions and meet the requirement with minimal operational overhead, enabling S3 Versioning is the best solution.

S3 Versioning:

S3 Versioning allows multiple versions of an object to be stored in the same S3 bucket. When a file is deleted or overwritten, S3 preserves the previous versions, which means you can recover from accidental deletions or modifications.

Enabling versioning requires minimal overhead, as it is a bucket-level setting and does not require additional backup processes or data replication.

Users can recover specific versions of files that were unintentionally deleted, meeting the needs of the data engineer to avoid accidental data loss.

The company wants to use Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose to transform CSV files into JSON format and store the files in Apache Parquet format with the least development effort.

Option B: Use Kinesis Data Firehose to convert the CSV files to JSON and to store the files in Parquet format.Kinesis Data Firehose supports data format conversion natively, including converting incoming CSV data to JSON format and storing the resulting files in Parquet format in Amazon S3. This solution requires the least development effort because it uses built-in transformation features of Kinesis Data Firehose.

Other options (A, C, D) involve invoking AWS Lambda functions, which would introduce additional complexity and development effort compared to Kinesis Data Firehose’s native format conversion capabilities.

This solution will meet the requirements with the lowest latency because it uses Amazon Managed Service for Apache Flink to process the sensor data in real time and write it to Amazon Timestream, a fast, scalable, and serverless time series database. Amazon Timestream is optimized for storing and analyzing time series data, such as sensor data, and can handle trillions of events per day with millisecond latency. By using Amazon Timestream as a source, you can create an Amazon QuickSight dashboard that displays a real-time view of operational efficiency on a large screen in the manufacturing facility. Amazon QuickSight is a fully managed business intelligence service that can connect to various data sources, including Amazon Timestream, and provide interactive visualizations and insights123.

The other options are not optimal for the following reasons:

A. Use Amazon Managed Service for Apache Flink (previously known as Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics) to process the sensor data. Use a connector for Apache Flink to write data to an Amazon Timestream database. Use the Timestream database as a source to create a Grafana dashboard. This option is similar to option C, but it uses Grafana instead of Amazon QuickSight to create the dashboard. Grafana is an open source visualization tool that can also connect to Amazon Timestream, but it requires additional steps to set up and configure, such as deploying a Grafana server on Amazon EC2, installing the Amazon Timestream plugin, and creating an IAM role for Grafana to access Timestream. These steps can increase the latency and complexity of the solution.

B. Configure the S3 bucket to send a notification to an AWS Lambda function when any new object is created. Use the Lambda function to publish the data to Amazon Aurora. Use Aurora as a source to create an Amazon QuickSight dashboard. This option is not suitable for displaying a real-time view of operational efficiency, as it introduces unnecessary delays and costs in the data pipeline. First, the sensor data is written to an S3 bucket by Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose, which can have a buffering interval of up to 900 seconds. Then, the S3 bucket sends a notification to a Lambda function, which can incur additional invocation and execution time. Finally, the Lambda function publishes the data to Amazon Aurora, a relational database that is not optimized for time series data and can have higher storage and performance costs than Amazon Timestream .

D. Use AWS Glue bookmarks to read sensor data from the S3 bucket in real time. Publish the data to an Amazon Timestream database. Use the Timestream database as a source to create a Grafana dashboard. This option is also not suitable for displaying a real-time view of operational efficiency, as it uses AWS Glue bookmarks to read sensor data from the S3 bucket. AWS Glue bookmarks are a feature that helps AWS Glue jobs and crawlers keep track of the data that has already been processed, so that they can resume from where they left off. However, AWS Glue jobs and crawlers are not designed for real-time data processing, as they can have a minimum frequency of 5 minutes and a variable start-up time. Moreover, this option also uses Grafana instead of Amazon QuickSight to create the dashboard, which can increase the latency and complexity of the solution .

1: Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Flink

2: Amazon Timestream

3: Amazon QuickSight

Analyze data in Amazon Timestream using Grafana

Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose

Amazon Aurora

AWS Glue Bookmarks

AWS Glue Job and Crawler Scheduling

Option C is the most cost-effective because it keeps the datasets in Amazon S3 and uses Amazon Athena to query them with SQL only when needed, avoiding the cost of running always-on database infrastructure. The study material states that “Amazon Athena is a serverless service that allows you to query data stored in Amazon S3 using standard SQL” . This directly matches the requirement that analysts will “analyze the data by using SQL queries,” while remaining cost-efficient due to serverless, on-demand querying.

To make CSV and JSON in S3 easily queryable, metadata must be discoverable and managed. The material also highlights that AWS Glue automates cataloging data in S3 through the AWS Glue Data Catalog, which “helps discover and manage metadata for data stored in AWS,” enabling query engines to treat file data as tables .

Other options are less aligned: RDS MySQL adds continuous capacity and administration costs; DataBrew is primarily for visual preparation (clean/normalize) rather than serving as the SQL query layer ; and QuickSight/SPICE targets BI dashboards, not general-purpose ad hoc SQL over raw files.

The company wants to gather information about incomplete multipart uploads and outdated versions in its Amazon S3 buckets to optimize storage costs.

Option B: Use Amazon S3 Inventory configurations reports to gather the information.S3 Inventory provides reports that can list incomplete multipart uploads and versions of objects stored in S3. It offers an easy, automated way to track object metadata across buckets, including data necessary for cost optimization, without manual effort.

Options A (AWS CLI), C (S3 Storage Lens), and D (usage reports) either do not specifically gather the required information about incomplete uploads and outdated versions or require more manual intervention.

The data engineer needs to orchestrate ETL jobs that include Spark jobs on Amazon EMR, API calls to Salesforce, and loading data into Redshift. They also need automatic failure handling and retries. Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (Amazon MWAA) is the best solution for this requirement.

Option A: Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (Amazon MWAA)Apache Airflow is designed for complex job orchestration, allowing users to define workflows (DAGs) in Python. MWAA manages Airflow and its integrations with other AWS services, including Amazon EMR, Redshift, and external APIs like Salesforce. It provides automatic retry handling, failure detection, and detailed monitoring, which fits the use case perfectly.

Option B (AWS Step Functions) can orchestrate tasks but doesn ' t natively support complex workflow definitions with Python like Airflow does.

Option C (AWS Glue) is more focused on ETL and doesn ' t handle the orchestration of external systems like Salesforce as well as Airflow.

Option D (Amazon EventBridge) is more suited for event-driven architectures rather than complex workflow orchestration.

To achieve the highest throughput and efficiently use cluster resources while loading data into an Amazon Redshift cluster, the optimal approach is to use a single COPY command that ingests data in parallel.

Option D: Use a single COPY command to load the data into the Redshift cluster.The COPY command is designed to load data from multiple files in parallel into a Redshift table, using all the cluster nodes to optimize the load process. Redshift is optimized for parallel processing, and a single COPY command can load multiple files at once, maximizing throughput.

Options A, B, and C either involve unnecessary complexity or inefficient approaches, such as using multiple COPY commands or INSERT statements, which are not optimized for bulk loading.

The requirement involves transforming CSV files by renaming columns, removing rows, and other operations with minimal development effort. AWS Glue DataBrew is the best solution here because it allows you to visually create transformation recipes without writing extensive code.

Option D: Use AWS Glue DataBrew recipes to read and transform the CSV files.DataBrew provides a visual interface where you can build transformation steps (e.g., renaming columns, filtering rows, creating new columns, etc.) as a " recipe " that can be applied to datasets, making it easy to handle complex transformations on CSV files with minimal coding.

Other options (A, B, C) involve more manual development and configuration effort (e.g., writing Python jobs or creating custom workflows in Glue) compared to the low-code/no-code approach of DataBrew.