Free and Premium Amazon Web Services Data-Engineer-Associate Dumps Questions Answers

Problem Analysis:

The company processes2 GB of daily sales recordsand100 GB of Salesforce sales opportunities.

The goal is to analyze and correlate the two datasets withlow operational overhead.

The process must runonce nightly.

Key Considerations:

Amazon AppFlowsimplifies data integration with Salesforce.

AWS Gluecan extract data from MySQL and perform ETL operations.

Step Functionscan orchestrate workflows with minimal manual intervention.

Apache Airflow and Flink add complexity, which conflicts with the requirement for low operational overhead.

Solution Analysis:

Option A: MWAA + Lambda + Step Functions

Requires custom Lambda code for dataset correlation, increasing development and operational complexity.

Option B: AppFlow + Glue + MWAA

MWAA adds orchestration overhead compared to the simpler Step Functions.

Option C: AppFlow + Glue + Step Functions

AppFlow fetches Salesforce data, Glue extracts MySQL data, and Step Functions orchestrate the entire process.

Minimal setup and operational overhead, making it the best choice.

Option D: AppFlow + Kinesis + Flink + Step Functions

Using Kinesis and Flink for batch processing introduces unnecessary complexity.

Final Recommendation:

UseAmazon AppFlowto fetch Salesforce data,AWS Glueto process MySQL data, andStep Functionsfor orchestration.

Amazon Athena is a serverless, interactive query service that enables you to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. AWS Lake Formation is a service that helps you build, secure, and manage data lakes on AWS. You can use AWS Lake Formation to create data filters that define the level of access for different IAM roles based on the columns, rows, or tags of the data. By using Amazon Athena to query the data and AWS Lake Formation to create data filters, the company can meet the requirements of ensuring that user groups can access only the PII that they require with the least effort. The solution is to use Amazon Athena to query the data in the data lake that is in Amazon S3. Then, set up AWS Lake Formation and create data filters to establish levels of access for the company’s IAM roles. For example, a data filter can allow a user group to access only the columns that contain the PII that they need, such as name and email address, and deny access to the columns that contain the PII that they do not need, such as phone number and social security number. Finally, assign each user to the IAM role that matches the user’s PII access requirements. This way, the user groups can access the data in the data lake securely and efficiently. The other options are either not feasible or not optimal. Using Amazon QuickSight to access the data (option B) would require the company to pay for the QuickSight service and to configure the column-level security features for each user. Building a custom query builder UI that will run Athena queries in the background to access the data (option C) would require the company to develop and maintain the UI and to integrate it with Amazon Cognito. Creating IAM roles that have different levels of granular access (option D) would require the company to manage multiple IAM roles and policies and to ensure that they are aligned with the data schema. References:

Amazon Athena

AWS Lake Formation

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide, Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Visualization, Section 4.3: Amazon Athena

The best solution to cost optimize the company’s use of Amazon Athena without adding any additional infrastructure costs is to use the query result reuse feature of Amazon Athena for the SQL queries. This feature allows you to run the same query multiple times without incurring additional charges, as long as the underlying data has not changed and the query results are still in the query result location in Amazon S31. This feature is useful for scenarios where you have a petabyte-scale dataset that is updated infrequently, such as once a day, and you have a BI application that runs the same queries repeatedly, such as every hour. By using the query result reuse feature, you can reduce the amount of data scanned by your queries and save on the cost of running Athena. You can enable or disable this feature at the workgroup level or at the individual query level1.

Option A is not the best solution, as configuring an Amazon S3 Lifecycle policy to move data to the S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage class after 1 day would not cost optimize the company’s use of Amazon Athena, but rather increase the cost and complexity. Amazon S3 Lifecycle policies are rules that you can define to automatically transition objects between different storage classes based on specified criteria, such as the age of the object2. S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest-cost storage class in Amazon S3, designed for long-term data archiving that is accessed once or twice in a year3. While moving data to S3 Glacier Deep Archive can reduce the storage cost, it would also increase the retrieval cost and latency, as it takes up to 12 hours to restore the data from S3 Glacier Deep Archive3. Moreover, Athena does not support querying data that is in S3 Glacier or S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage classes4. Therefore, using this option would not meet the requirements of running on-demand SQL queries on the dataset.

Option C is not the best solution, as adding an Amazon ElastiCache cluster between the BI application and Athena would not cost optimize the company’s use of Amazon Athena, but rather increase the cost and complexity. Amazon ElastiCache is a service that offers fully managed in-memory data stores, such as Redis and Memcached, that can improve the performance and scalability of web applications by caching frequently accessed data. While using ElastiCache can reduce the latency and load on the BI application, it would not reduce the amount of data scanned by Athena, which is the main factor that determines the cost of running Athena. Moreover, using ElastiCachewould introduce additional infrastructure costs and operational overhead, as you would have to provision, manage, and scale the ElastiCache cluster, and integrate it with the BI application and Athena.

Option D is not the best solution, as changing the format of the files that are in the dataset to Apache Parquet would not cost optimize the company’s use of Amazon Athena without adding any additional infrastructure costs, but rather increase the complexity. Apache Parquet is a columnar storage format that can improve the performance of analytical queries by reducing the amount of data that needs to be scanned and providing efficient compression and encoding schemes. However, changing the format of the files that are in the dataset to Apache Parquet would require additional processing and transformation steps, such as using AWS Glue or Amazon EMR to convert the files from their original format to Parquet, and storing the converted files in a separate location in Amazon S3. This would increase the complexity and the operational overhead of the data pipeline, and also incur additional costs for using AWS Glue or Amazon EMR. References:

Query result reuse

Amazon S3 Lifecycle

S3 Glacier Deep Archive

Storage classes supported by Athena

[What is Amazon ElastiCache?]

[Amazon Athena pricing]

[Columnar Storage Formats]

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

AWS Glue ETL is designed for scalable and serverless data processing, and it supports integrated quality enforcement usingAWS Glue Data Quality, which makes it the most cost-effective and integrated option when combined withAmazon RDS for MySQLas the relational database.

“AWS Glue can perform data validation as part of the ETL process, ensuring data quality before storingthe data in the target data store.”

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

Using AWS Glue Data Quality directly in the ETL workflow is simpler and more cost-effective than separating transformation (Glue) and validation (DataBrew) into different services.

AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS)is purpose-built to migrate and continuously replicate data from both AWS-hosted and on-premises databases. It supports full-load (existing data) andchange data capture (CDC)for ongoing changes, making itthe most cost-effective and operationally simplesolution in this scenario.

“DMS supports both full-load and continuous replication via CDC. This enables replicating existing and future data from various sources to a data lake in Amazon S3.”

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

AWS Glue is not suitable for real-time CDC replication across hybrid environments.

Explanation: 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.

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

To avoid duplicate records in Amazon Redshift, the most effective solution is to perform the ETL in a way that first loads the data into astaging tableand then uses SQL commands like MERGE or UPDATE to insert new records and update existing records without introducing duplicates.

Using Staging Tables in Redshift:

The AWS Glue job can write data to astaging tablein Redshift. Once the data is loaded, SQL commands can be executed to compare the staging data with the target table andupdate or insertrecords appropriately. This ensures no duplicates are introduced during re-runs of the Glue job.

To address the requirement ofmasking PII dataand ensuring secure access throughout the data pipeline, the combination ofAWS Glue DataBrewandIAMprovides a low-maintenance solution.

A. AWS Glue DataBrew for Masking:

AWS Glue DataBrew provides a visual tool to performdata transformations, includingmasking PII data. It allows for easy configuration of data transformation tasks without requiring manual coding, making it ideal for this use case.

AWS Glue is a fully managed serverless ETL service that can handle various data sources and formats, including .csv files in Amazon S3. AWS Glue provides two types of jobs: PySpark and Python shell. PySpark jobs use Apache Spark to process large-scale data in parallel, while Python shell jobs use Python scripts to process small-scale data in a single execution environment. For this requirement, a Python shell job is more suitable and cost-effective, as the size of each S3 object is less than 100 MB, which does not require distributed processing. A Python shell job can use pandas, a popular Python library for data analysis, to transform the .csv data as needed. The other solutions are not optimalor relevant for this requirement. Writing a custom Python application and hosting it on an Amazon EKS cluster would require more effort and resources to set up and manage the Kubernetes environment, as well as to handle the data ingestion and transformation logic. Writing a PySpark ETL script and hosting it on an Amazon EMR cluster would also incur more costs and complexity to provision and configure the EMR cluster, as well as to use Apache Spark for processing small data files. Writing an AWS Glue PySpark job would also be less efficient and economical than a Python shell job, as it would involve unnecessary overhead and charges for using Apache Spark for small data files. References:

AWS Glue

Working with Python Shell Jobs

pandas

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

Amazon Athena provides federated query connectors that allow querying multiple data sources, such as Amazon Redshift, Teradata, and Google BigQuery, without needing to extract the data from the original source. This solution is optimal because it offers theleast operational effortby avoiding complex data movement and transformation processes.

Amazon Athena Federated Queries:

Athena’s federated queries allow direct querying of data stored across multiple sources, including Amazon Redshift, Teradata, and BigQuery. With Athena’s support for Apache Iceberg, the company can easily run a Merge operation on the Iceberg table.

The solution reduces complexity by centralizing the query execution and transformation process in Athena using SQL queries.

A “No space left on device” error typically results fromdata skeworlarge shuffle stages. The best actions are:

B. Monitor using Spark UI and Glue metricsto find skewed partitions or executor issues.

D. Use --write-shuffle-files-to-s3to offload intermediate data to S3 instead of local disk, andapply saltingto reduce skew.

“You can reduce the impact of data skew and large shuffle operations by monitoring with Spark UI and enabling the --write-shuffle-files-to-s3 option. Salting can help rebalance the skewed keys.”

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

Scaling out workers (A, C) is more costly and less efficient if the root cause (skew) is not fixed.

Concurrency scaling is a feature that allows you to support thousands of concurrent users and queries, with consistently fast query performance. When you turn on concurrency scaling, Amazon Redshift automatically adds query processing power in seconds to process queries without any delays. You can manage which queries are sent to the concurrency-scaling cluster by configuring WLM queues. To turn on concurrency scaling for a queue, set the Concurrency Scaling mode value to auto. The other optionsare either incorrect or irrelevant, as they do not enable concurrency scaling for the existing Redshift cluster on RA3 nodes. References:

Working with concurrency scaling - Amazon Redshift

Amazon Redshift Concurrency Scaling - Amazon Web Services

Configuring concurrency scaling queues - Amazon Redshift

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide (Chapter 6, page 163)

Problem Analysis:

Input Requirements: Gaming app generates approximately20 KB data records, which must be ingested and made available tothree internal consumerswithdedicated throughput.

Key Requirements:

High throughput for ingestion from each device.

Dedicated processing bandwidth for each consumer.

Key Considerations:

Amazon Kinesis Data Streamssupports high-throughput ingestion withPutRecords APIfor batch writes.

TheEnhanced Fan-Outfeature providesdedicated throughputto each consumer, avoiding bandwidth contention.

This solution avoids bottlenecks and ensures optimal throughput for the gaming application and consumers.

Solution Analysis:

Option A: Kinesis Data Streams + Enhanced Fan-Out

PutRecords API is designed for batch writes, improving ingestion performance.

Enhanced Fan-Out allows each consumer to process the stream independently with dedicated throughput.

Option B: Data Firehose + Dedicated Throughput Request

Firehose is not designed for real-time stream processing or fan-out. It delivers data to destinations like S3, Redshift, or OpenSearch, not multiple independent consumers.

Option C: Data Firehose + Enhanced Fan-Out

Firehose does not support enhanced fan-out. This option is invalid.

Option D: Kinesis Data Streams + EC2 Instances

Hosting stream-processing applications on EC2 increases operational overhead compared to native enhanced fan-out.

Final Recommendation:

UseKinesis Data Streams with Enhanced Fan-Outfor high-throughput ingestion and dedicated consumer bandwidth.

 AWS Glue is a fully managed serverless ETL service that can handle data deduplication with minimal operational overhead. AWS Glue provides a built-in ML transform called FindMatches, which can automatically identify and group similar records in a dataset. FindMatches can also generate a primary key for each group of records and remove duplicates. FindMatches does not require any coding or prior ML experience, as it can learn from a sample of labeled data provided by the user. FindMatches can also scale to handle large datasets and optimize the cost and performance of the ETL job. References:

AWS Glue

FindMatches ML Transform

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

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 thedestination Region.This allows Amazon Redshift to encrypt the snapshots using the specified AWS KMS key.

You must enable snapshot copying in thesource Regionand specify the name of the snapshot copy grant that was created in thedestination 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

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

Athena workgroups are a way to isolate query execution and query history among users, teams, and applications that share the same AWS account. By creating a workgroup for each use case, the company can control the access and actions on the workgroup resource using resource-level IAM permissions or identity-based IAM policies. The company can also use tags to organize and identify the workgroups, and use them as conditions in the IAM policies to grant or deny permissions to the workgroup. This solution meets the requirements of separating query processes and access to query history among users, teams, and applications that are in the same AWS account. References:

Athena Workgroups

IAM policies for accessing workgroups

Workgroup example policies

Problem Analysis:

The company needs near real-time replication of MySQL updates to Amazon Redshift.

Minimal development effort is required for this solution.

Key Considerations:

AWSDMSprovides afull load + CDC (Change Data Capture)mode for continuous replication of database changes.

DMS integrates natively with both MySQL and Redshift, simplifying setup.

Solution Analysis:

Option A: AWS Glue Job

Glue is batch-oriented and does not support near real-time replication.

Option B: DMS with Full Load + CDC

Efficiently handles initial database load and continuous updates.

Requires minimal setup and operational overhead.

Option C: AppFlow SDK

AppFlow is not designed for database replication. Custom connectors increase development effort.

Option D: DataSync

DataSync is for file synchronization and not suitable for database updates.

Final Recommendation:

UseAWS DMSinfull load + CDCmode for continuous replication.

Problem Analysis:

The company usesDynamoDBfor gaming data storage and needs to ingest data intoAmazon OpenSearch Serviceinnear real time.

Data updates must propagate quickly to OpenSearch for analytics or search purposes.

Key Considerations:

DynamoDB Streamsprovide near-real-time capture of table changes (inserts, updates, and deletes).

Integration withAWS Lambdaallows seamless processing of these changes.

OpenSearch offers APIs for indexing and updating documents, which Lambda can invoke.

Solution Analysis:

Option A: Step Functions with Periodic Export

Not suitable for near-real-time updates; introduces significant latency.

Operationally complex to manage periodic exports and S3 data ingestion.

Option B: AWS Glue Job

AWS Glue is designed for ETL workloads but lacks real-time processing capabilities.

Option C: DynamoDB Streams + Lambda

DynamoDB Streams capture changes in near real time.

Lambda can process these streams and use the OpenSearch API to update the index.

This approach provides low latency and seamless integration with minimal operational overhead.

Option D: Custom OpenSearch Plugin

Writing a custom plugin adds complexity and is unnecessary with existing AWS integrations.

Implementation Steps:

EnableDynamoDB Streamsfor the relevant DynamoDB tables.

Create aLambda functionto process stream records:

Parse insert, update, and delete events.

Use OpenSearch APIs to index or update documents based on the event type.

Set up a trigger to invoke the Lambda function whenever there are changes in the DynamoDB Stream.

Monitor and log errors for debugging and operational health.

The AWS Transfer Family server's security policy can be updated to enforceTLS 1.2or higher, ensuring compliance with company policy for encrypted data transfers.

AWS Transfer Family Security Policy:

AWS Transfer Family supports setting aminimum TLS versionthrough its security policy configuration. This ensures that only connections using TLS 1.2 or above are allowed.

TheRedshift UNLOADcommand is specifically designed to export query results toAmazon S3, andAWS Gluecan orchestrate this as part of a scheduled job. This is the cleanest and most appropriate approach for recurring weekly data transfers:

“Use the Redshift UNLOAD command with AWS Glue to export data to Amazon S3. This pattern enables routine exports of selected data to external locations.”

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

This avoids complexities of Redshift Spectrum or unsupported use of COPY commands in Lambda.

 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 datain 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]

Problem Analysis:

The company ingests geolocation records (10 bytes each) at 10,000 records per second intoKinesis Data Streams.

Data transmission delays are acceptable, but the solution must maximize throughput efficiency.

Key Considerations:

TheKinesis Producer Library (KPL)batches records and uses aggregation to optimize shard throughput.

Efficiently handles high-throughput scenarios with minimal operational overhead.

Solution Analysis:

Option A: Kinesis Agent

Designed for file-based ingestion; not optimized for geolocation records.

Option B: KPL

Aggregates records into larger payloads, significantly improving shard throughput.

Suitable for applications generating small, high-frequency records.

Option C: Kinesis Firehose

Firehose is for delivery to destinations like S3 or Redshift and is not optimized for direct ingestion to Kinesis Data Streams.

Option D: Kinesis SDK

The SDK lacks advanced features like aggregation, resulting in lower throughput efficiency.

Final Recommendation:

UseKinesis Producer Library (KPL)for its built-in aggregation and batching capabilities.

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, andscale 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.

The most efficient and low-operational-overhead solution for ingesting data into Amazon Redshift from Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is to useAmazon Redshift streaming ingestion. This feature allows Redshift to directly ingest streaming data from Kinesis Data Streams and process it in real-time.

Amazon Redshift Streaming Ingestion:

Redshift supports native streaming ingestion from Kinesis Data Streams, allowing real-time data to be queried usingmaterialized views.

This solution reduces operational complexity because you don't need intermediary services like Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose or S3 for batch loading.

Problem Analysis:

The company must log alluser activitiesandconnection activitiesin Amazon Redshift for security compliance.

Key Considerations:

Redshift supportsaudit logging, which can be configured to write logs to an S3 bucket.

S3 provides durable, scalable, and cost-effective storage for logs.

Solution Analysis:

Option A: S3 for Logging

Standard approach for storing Redshift logs.

Easy to set up and manage with minimal cost.

Option B: Amazon EFS

EFS is unnecessary for this use case and less cost-efficient than S3.

Option C: Aurora MySQL

Using a database to store logs increases complexity and cost.

Option D: EBS Volume

EBS is not a scalable option for log storage compared to S3.

Final Recommendation:

EnableRedshift audit loggingand specify anS3 bucketas the destination.

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]

The company needs to ingest tables from an on-premises Oracle database into a data lake on Amazon S3 inApache Parquet format. The most efficient solution, requiring the least manual effort, would be to useAWS Database Migration Service (DMS)for continuous data replication.

Option C: Create an AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) task for ongoing replication. Set the Oracle database as the source. Set Amazon S3 as the target. Configure the task to write the data in Parquet format.AWS DMS can continuously replicate data from the Oracle database into Amazon S3, transforming it into Parquet format as it ingests the data. DMS simplifies the process by providing ongoing replication with minimal setup, and it automatically handles the conversion to Parquet format without requiring manualtransformations or separate jobs. This option is theleast effortsolution since it automates both the ingestion and transformation processes.

Other options:

Option A (Apache Sqoop on EMR)involves more manual configuration and management, including setting up EMR clusters and writing Sqoop jobs.

Option B (AWS Glue bookmark job)involves configuring Glue jobs, which adds complexity. While Glue supports data transformations, DMS offers a more seamless solution for database replication.

Option D (RDS and Lambda triggers)introduces unnecessary complexity by involving RDS and Lambda for a task that DMS can handle more efficiently.

The requirement is to manage the size of an Amazon DynamoDB table by automatically deleting data older than 1 month without disrupting ongoing read or write operations. The simplest and most maintenance-free solution is to useDynamoDB Time-to-Live (TTL).

Option A: Use the DynamoDB TTL feature to automatically expire data based on timestamps.DynamoDB TTL allows you to specify an attribute (e.g., a timestamp) that defines when items in the table should expire. After the expiration time, DynamoDB automatically deletes the items, freeing up storage space and keeping the table size under control without manual intervention or disruptions to ongoing operations.

Other options involve higher maintenance and manual scheduling or scanning operations, which increase complexity unnecessarily compared to the native TTL feature.

According to the guide:

“For integrating streaming data from Amazon MSK into Amazon Redshift efficiently and cost-effectively, AWS Glue streaming jobs can process and transform the data, storing it in Amazon S3. Amazon Redshift Spectrum can then directly query the data from S3, minimizing operational overhead and reducing storage costs.”

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

This setup offers:

Low latencyvia Glue streaming.

Low storage costby using Parquet/ORC on S3.

Minimal operational overheadby avoiding complex pipelines or constantly updated materialized views.

In Amazon Redshift, theSUPERdata type is designed specifically to handle semi-structured data like JSON, Parquet, ORC, and others. By using the SUPER data type, Redshift can ingest and query JSON data without requiring complex data flattening processes, thus reducing the amount of preprocessing required before loading the data. TheSUPERdata type also works seamlessly withRedshift Spectrum, enabling complex queries that can combine both structured and semi-structured datasets, which aligns with the company’s need to use combined datasets to identify potential new customers.

Using the SUPER data type also allows forautomatic parsing and query processingof nested data structures through Amazon Redshift'sPARTITION BYandJSONPATH expressions, which makes this option the most efficient approach with the least effort involved. This reduces the overhead associated with using tools like AWS Glue or Lambda for data transformation.

Problem Analysis:

The company requires acentralized data warehousefor consolidating data from various sources.

They useAmazon QuickSight in direct query mode, necessitatingfast response timesfor analytical queries.

Users query the data intermittently, withunpredictable spikesduring the day.

Operational overhead should be minimal.

Key Considerations:

The solution must support fast, SQL-based analytics.

It must handle unpredictable spikes efficiently.

Must integrate seamlessly withQuickSightfor direct querying.

Minimize operational complexity and scaling concerns.

Solution Analysis:

Option A: Amazon Redshift Serverless

Redshift Serverless eliminates the need for provisioning and managing clusters.

Automatically scales compute capacity up or down based on query demand.

Reduces operational overhead by handling performance optimization.

Fully integrates withAmazon QuickSight, ensuring low-latency analytics.

Reduces costs as it charges only for usage, making it ideal for workloads with intermittent spikes.

Option B: Amazon Athena with S3 (Apache Parquet)

Athena supports querying data directly from S3 in Parquet format.

While it’s cost-effective, performance depends on the size and complexity of the data.

It is not optimized for high-speed analytics needed by QuickSight in direct query mode.

Option C: Amazon Redshift Provisioned Clusters

Requires manual cluster provisioning, scaling, and maintenance.

Higher operational overhead compared to Redshift Serverless.

Option D: Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL

Aurora is optimized for transactional databases, not data warehousing or analytics.

Does not meet the requirement for fast analytics queries.

Final Recommendation:

Amazon Redshift Serverlessis the best choice for this use case because it provides fast analytics, integrates natively with QuickSight, and minimizes operational complexity while efficiently handling unpredictable spikes.

Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is a service that enables you to collect, process, and analyze real-time streaming data. You can use Kinesis Data Streams to ingest data from various sources, such as Amazon CloudWatch Logs, and deliver it to different destinations, such as Amazon S3 or Amazon Redshift. To use Kinesis Data Streams to deliver the security logs from the production AWS account to the security AWS account, you need to create a destination data stream in the security AWS account. This data stream will receive the log data from the CloudWatch Logs service in the production AWS account. To enable this cross-account data delivery, you need to create an IAM role and a trust policy in the security AWS account. The IAM role defines the permissions that the CloudWatch Logs service needs to put data into the destination data stream. The trust policy allows the production AWS account to assume the IAM role. Finally, you need to create a subscription filter in the production AWS account. A subscription filter defines the pattern to match log events and the destination to send the matchingevents. In this case, the destination is the destination data stream in the security AWS account. This solution meets the requirements of using Kinesis Data Streams to deliver the security logs to the security AWS account. The other options are either not possible or not optimal. You cannot create a destination data stream in the production AWS account, as this would not deliver the data to the security AWS account. You cannot create a subscription filter in the security AWS account, as this would not capture the log events from the production AWS account. References:

Using Amazon Kinesis Data Streams with Amazon CloudWatch Logs

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide, Chapter 3: Data Ingestion and Transformation, Section 3.3: Amazon Kinesis Data Streams

 A data mesh is an architectural framework that organizes data into domains and treats data as products that are owned and offered for consumption by different teams1. A data mesh requires a centralized layer for data governance and access control, as well as a distributed layer for data storage and analysis. AWS Glue can provide data catalogs and ETL operations for the data mesh, but it cannot provide data governance and access control by itself2. Therefore, the company needs to use another AWS service for this purpose. AWS Lake Formation is a service that allows you to create, secure, and manage data lakes on AWS3. It integrates with AWS Glue and other AWS services to provide centralized data governance and access control for the data mesh. Therefore, option E is correct.

For data storage and analysis, the company can choose from different AWS services depending on their needs and preferences. However, one of the benefits of a data mesh is that it enables data to be stored and processed in a decoupled and scalable way1. Therefore, using serverless or managed services that can handle large volumes and varieties of data is preferable. Amazon S3 is a highly scalable, durable, and secure object storage service that can store any type of data. Amazon Athena is a serverless interactive query service that can analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. Therefore, option B is a good choice for data storage and analysis in a data mesh. Option A, C, and D are not optimal because they either use relational databases that are not suitable for storing diverse and unstructured data, or they require more management and provisioning than serverless services. References:

1: What is a Data Mesh? - Data Mesh Architecture Explained - AWS

2: AWS Glue - Developer Guide

3: AWS Lake Formation - Features

[4]: Design a data mesh architecture using AWS Lake Formation and AWS Glue

[5]: Amazon S3 - Features

[6]: Amazon Athena - Features

Problem Analysis:

The pipeline processescompressed filesin S3 and must supportincremental data processing.

AWS Glue features must facilitatetracking progressto avoid reprocessing the same data.

Key Considerations:

Incremental data processing requires tracking which files or partitions have already been processed.

The solution must be automated and efficient for large-scale ETL jobs.

Solution Analysis:

Option A: Workflows

Workflows organize and orchestrate multiple Glue jobs but do not track progress for incremental data processing.

Option B: Triggers

Triggers initiate Glue jobs based on a schedule or events but do not track which data has been processed.

Option C: Job Bookmarks

Job bookmarks track the state of the data that has been processed, enabling incremental processing.

Automatically skip files or partitions that were previously processed in Glue jobs.

Option D: Classifiers

Classifiers determine the schema of incoming data but do not handle incremental processing.

Final Recommendation:

Job bookmarksare specifically designed to enable incremental data processing in AWS Glue ETL pipelines.

The query editor v2 in Amazon Redshift is a web-based tool that allows users to run SQL queries and scripts on Amazon Redshift clusters. The query editor v2 supports creating and managing materialized views, which are precomputed results of a query that can improve the performance of subsequent queries. The query editor v2 also supports scheduling queries to run at specified intervals, which can be used to refreshmaterialized views automatically. This solution requires the least effort, as it does not involve any additional services, coding, or configuration. The other solutions are more complex and require more operational overhead. Apache Airflow is an open-source platform for orchestrating workflows, which can be used to refresh materialized views, but it requires setting up and managing an Airflow environment, creating DAGs (directed acyclic graphs) to define the workflows, and integrating with Amazon Redshift. AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that can run code in response to events, which can be used to refresh materialized views, but it requires creating and deploying Lambda functions, defining UDFs within Amazon Redshift, and triggering the functions using events or schedules. AWS Glue is a fully managed ETL service that can run jobs to transform and load data, which can be used to refresh materialized views, but it requires creating and configuring Glue jobs, defining Glue workflows to orchestrate the jobs, and scheduling the workflows using triggers. References:

Query editor V2

Working with materialized views

Scheduling queries

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

The company's Apache Spark ETL job on Amazon EMR uses high CPU but low memory, meaning thatcompute-optimized EC2 instanceswould be the most cost-effective choice. These instances are designed for high-performance compute applications, where CPU usage is high, but memory needs are minimal, which is exactly the case here.

Compute Optimized Instances:

Compute-optimized instances, such as the C5 series, provide a higher ratio of CPU to memory, which is more suitable for jobs with high CPU usage and relatively low memory consumption.

Switching from general-purpose EC2 instances to compute-optimized instances canreduce costswhile improving performance, as these instances are optimized for workloads like Spark jobs that perform a lot of computation.

The best solution to meet the requirements of giving data scientists the ability to query all data sources by using syntax similar to SQL with the least operational overhead is to use AWS Glue to crawl the data sources, store metadata in the AWS Glue Data Catalog, use Amazon Athena to query the data, use SQL for structured data sources, and use PartiQL for data that is stored in JSON format.

AWS Glue is a serverless data integration service that makes it easy to prepare, clean, enrich, and move data between data stores1. AWS Glue crawlers are processes that connect to a data store, progress through a prioritized list of classifiers to determine the schema for your data, and then create metadata tables in the Data Catalog2. The Data Catalog is a persistent metadata store that contains table definitions, job definitions, and other control information to help you manage your AWS Glue components3. You can use AWS Glue to crawl the data sources, such as Amazon S3, Amazon RDS for Microsoft SQL Server, and Amazon DynamoDB, and store the metadata in the Data Catalog.

Amazon Athena is a serverless, interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data directly in Amazon S3 using standard SQL or Python4. Amazon Athena also supports PartiQL, a SQL-compatible query language that lets you query, insert, update, and delete data from semi-structured and nested data, such as JSON. You can use Amazon Athena to query the data from the Data Catalog using SQL for structured data sources, such as .csv files and relational databases, and PartiQL for data that is stored in JSON format. You can also use Athena to query data from other data sources, such as Amazon Redshift, using federated queries.

Using AWS Glue and Amazon Athena to query all data sources by using syntax similar to SQL is the least operational overhead solution, as you do not need to provision, manage, or scale any infrastructure, and you pay only for the resources you use. AWS Glue charges you based on the compute time and the data processed by your crawlers and ETL jobs1. Amazon Athena charges you based on the amount of data scanned by your queries. You can also reduce the cost and improve the performance of your queries by using compression, partitioning, and columnar formats for your data in Amazon S3.

Option B is not the best solution, as using AWS Glue to crawl the data sources, store metadata in the AWS Glue Data Catalog, and use Redshift Spectrum to query the data, would incur more costs and complexity than using Amazon Athena. Redshift Spectrum is a feature of Amazon Redshift, a fully managed data warehouse service, that allows you to query and join data across your data warehouse and your data lake using standard SQL. While Redshift Spectrum is powerful and useful for many data warehousing scenarios, it is not necessary or cost-effective for querying all data sources by using syntax similar to SQL. Redshift Spectrum charges you based on the amount of data scanned by your queries, which is similar to Amazon Athena, but it also requires you to have an Amazon Redshift cluster, which charges you based on the node type, the number of nodes, and the duration of the cluster5. These costs can add up quickly, especially if you have large volumes of data and complex queries. Moreover, using Redshift Spectrum would introduce additional latency and complexity, as you would have to provision and manage the cluster, and create an external schema and database for the data in the Data Catalog, instead of querying it directly from Amazon Athena.

Option C is not the best solution, as using AWS Glue to crawl the data sources, store metadata in the AWS Glue Data Catalog, use AWS Glue jobs to transform data that is in JSON format to Apache Parquet or .csv format, store the transformed data in an S3 bucket, and use Amazon Athena to query the original and transformed data from the S3 bucket, would incur more costs and complexity than using Amazon Athena with PartiQL. AWS Glue jobs are ETL scripts that you can write in Python or Scala to transform your data and load it to your target data store. Apache Parquet is a columnar storage format that can improve the performance of analytical queries by reducing the amount of data that needs to be scanned and providing efficient compression and encoding schemes6. While using AWS Glue jobs and Parquet can improve the performance and reduce the cost of your queries, they would also increase the complexity and the operational overhead of the data pipeline, as you would have to write, run, and monitor the ETL jobs, and store the transformed data in a separate location in Amazon S3. Moreover, using AWS Glue jobs and Parquet would introduce additional latency, as you would have to wait for the ETL jobs to finish before querying the transformed data.

Option D is not the best solution, as using AWS Lake Formation to create a data lake, use Lake Formation jobs to transform the data from all data sources to Apache Parquet format, store the transformed data in an S3 bucket, and use Amazon Athena or RedshiftSpectrum to query the data, would incur more costs and complexity than using Amazon Athena with PartiQL. AWS Lake Formation is a service that helps you centrally govern, secure, and globally share data for analytics and machine learning7. Lake Formation jobs are ETL jobs that you can create and run using the Lake Formation console or API. While using Lake Formation and Parquet can improve the performance and reduce the cost of your queries, they would also increase the complexity and the operational overhead of the data pipeline, as you would have to create, run, and monitor the Lake Formation jobs, and store the transformed data in a separate location in Amazon S3. Moreover, using Lake Formation and Parquet would introduce additional latency, as you would have to wait for the Lake Formation jobs to finish before querying the transformed data. Furthermore, using Redshift Spectrum to query the data would also incur the same costs and complexity as mentioned in option B. References:

What is Amazon Athena?

Data Catalog and crawlers in AWS Glue

AWS Glue Data Catalog

Columnar Storage Formats

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

AWS Glue Schema Registry

What is AWS Glue?

Amazon Redshift Serverless

Amazon Redshift provisioned clusters

[Querying external data using Amazon Redshift Spectrum]

[Using stored procedures in Amazon Redshift]

[What is AWS Lambda?]

[PartiQL for Amazon Athena]

[Federated queries in Amazon Athena]

[Amazon Athena pricing]

[Top 10 performance tuning tips for Amazon Athena]

[AWS Glue ETL jobs]

[AWS Lake Formation jobs]

AWS Data Exchange is a service that makes it easy to find, subscribe to, and use third-party data in the cloud. It provides a secure and reliable way to access and integrate data from various sources, such as data providers, public datasets, or AWS services. Using AWS Data Exchange, you can browse and subscribe to data products that suit your needs, and then use API calls or the AWS Management Console to export the data to Amazon S3, where you can use it with your existing analytics platform. This solution minimizes the effort and time required to incorporate third-party datasets, as you do not need to set up and manage data pipelines, storage, or access controls. You also benefit from the data quality and freshness provided by the data providers, who can update their data products as frequently as needed12.

The other options are not optimal for the following reasons:

B. Use API calls to access and integrate third-party datasets from AWS. This option is vague and does not specify which AWS service or feature is used to access and integrate third-party datasets. AWS offers a variety of services and features that can helpwith data ingestion, processing, and analysis, but not all of them are suitable for the given scenario. For example, AWS Glue is a serverless data integration service that can help you discover, prepare, and combine data from various sources, but it requires you to create and run data extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) jobs, which can add operational overhead3.

C. Use Amazon Kinesis Data Streams to access and integrate third-party datasets from AWS CodeCommit repositories. This option is not feasible, as AWS CodeCommit is a source control service that hosts secure Git-based repositories, not a data source that can be accessed by Amazon Kinesis Data Streams. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is a service that enables you to capture, process, and analyze data streams in real time, such as clickstream data, application logs, or IoT telemetry. It does not support accessing and integrating data from AWS CodeCommit repositories, which are meant for storing and managing code, not data .

D. Use Amazon Kinesis Data Streams to access and integrate third-party datasets from Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR). This option is also not feasible, as Amazon ECR is a fully managed container registry service that stores, manages, and deploys container images, not a data source that can be accessed by Amazon Kinesis Data Streams. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams does not support accessing and integrating data from Amazon ECR, which is meant for storing and managing container images, not data .

The company wants to gather information aboutincomplete multipart uploadsandoutdated versionsin its Amazon S3 buckets to optimize storage costs.

Option B: Use Amazon S3 Inventory configurations reports to gather the information.S3 Inventoryprovides 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.

Option B is the best solution to meet the requirements with the least operational overhead because S3 Select is a feature that allows you to retrieve only a subset of data from an S3 object by using simple SQL expressions. S3 Select works on objects stored in CSV, JSON, or Parquet format. By using S3 Select, you can avoid the need to download and process the entire S3 object, which reduces the amount of data transferred and the computation time. S3 Select is also easy to use and does not require any additional services or resources.

Option A is not a good solution because it involves writing custom code and configuring an AWS Lambda function to load data from the S3 bucket into a pandas dataframe and query the required column. This option adds complexity and latency to the data retrieval process and requires additional resources and configuration. Moreover, AWS Lambda has limitations on the execution time, memory, and concurrency, which may affect the performance and reliability of the data retrieval process.

Option C is not a good solution because it involves creating and running an AWS Glue DataBrew project to consume the S3 objects and query the required column. AWS Glue DataBrew is a visual data preparation tool that allows you to clean, normalize, and transform data without writing code. However, in this scenario, the data is already in Parquet format, which is a columnar storage format that is optimized for analytics. Therefore, there is no need to use AWS Glue DataBrew to prepare the data. Moreover, AWS Glue DataBrew adds extra time and cost to the data retrieval process and requires additional resources and configuration.

Option D is not a good solution because it involves running an AWS Glue crawler on the S3 objects and using a SQL SELECT statement in Amazon Athena to query the required column. An AWS Glue crawler is a service that can scan data sources and create metadata tables in the AWS Glue Data Catalog. The Data Catalog is a central repository that stores information about the data sources, such as schema, format, and location. Amazon Athena is a serverless interactive query service that allows you to analyze data in S3 using standard SQL. However, in this scenario, the schema and format of the data are already known and fixed, so there is no need to run a crawler to discover them. Moreover, running a crawler and using Amazon Athena adds extra time and cost to the data retrieval process and requires additional services and configuration.

 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

The company needs to load data warehouse tables into Amazon S3 and perform incremental synchronization with daily updates. The most efficient solution is to useAWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS)with a combination offull load and change data capture (CDC)to handle the initial load and daily incremental updates.

Option A: Use an AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) full load plus CDC job to load tables that contain monotonically increasing data columns from the on-premises data warehouse to Amazon S3. Use custom logic in AWS Glue to append the daily incremental data to a full-load copy that is in Amazon S3.DMS is designed to migrate databases to AWS, and the combination of full loadplus CDC is ideal for handling incremental data changes efficiently. AWS Glue can then be used to append the incremental data to the full data set in S3. This solution is highly operationally efficient because it automates both the full load and incremental updates.

Options B, C, and Dare less operationally efficient because they either require writing custom logic to handle bookmarks manually or involve unnecessary daily full loads.

Explanation: 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.

Amazon EC2 instances can use two types of storage volumes: instance store volumes and Amazon EBS volumes. Instance store volumes are ephemeral, meaning they are only attached to the instance for the duration of its life cycle. If the instance is stopped, terminated, or fails, the data on the instance store volume is lost. Amazon EBS volumes are persistent, meaning they can be detached from the instance and attached to another instance, and the data on the volume is preserved. To meet the requirement of persisting the data even if the EC2 instances are terminated, the data engineer must use Amazon EBS volumes to store the application data. The solution is to launch new EC2 instances by using an AMI that is backed by an EC2 instance store volume, which is the default option for most AMIs. Then, the data engineer must attach an Amazon EBS volume to each instance and configure the application to write the data to the EBS volume. This way, the data will be saved on the EBS volume and can be accessed by another instance if needed. The data engineer can apply the default settings to the EC2 instances, as there is no need to modify the instance type, security group, or IAM role for this solution. The other options are either not feasible or not optimal. Launching new EC2 instances by using an AMI that is backed by an EC2 instance store volume that contains the application data (option A) or by using an AMI that is backed by a root Amazon EBS volume that contains the application data (option B) would not work, as the data on the AMI would be outdated and overwritten by the new instances. Attaching an additional EC2 instance store volume to contain the application data (option D) would not work, as the data on the instance store volume would be lost if the instance is terminated. References:

Amazon EC2 Instance Store

Amazon EBS Volumes

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide, Chapter 2: Data Store Management, Section 2.1: Amazon EC2

TheChoicestate 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 FunctionsChoicestate 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 makesChoicethe correct answer for content-driven conditional workflows.

 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 arow-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

 AWS DataSync is an online data movement and discovery service that simplifies and accelerates data migrations to AWS as well as moving data to and from on-premises storage, edge locations, other cloud providers, and AWS Storage services1. AWS DataSync can copy data to and from various sources and targets, including Amazon S3, and handle files in multiple formats. AWS DataSync also supports incremental transfers, meaning it can detect and copy only the changes to the data, reducing the amount of data transferred and improving the performance. AWS DataSync can automate and schedule the transfer process using triggers, and monitor the progress and status of the transfers using CloudWatch metrics and events1.

AWS DataSync is the most operationally efficient way to transfer the data in this scenario, as it meets all the requirements and offers a serverless and scalable solution. AWS Glue, AWS Direct Connect, and Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration are not the best options for this scenario, as they have some limitations or drawbacks compared to AWS DataSync. AWS Glue is a serverless ETL service that can extract, transform, and load data from various sources to various targets, including Amazon S32. However, AWS Glue is not designed for large-scale data transfers, as it has some quotas and limits on the number and size of files it can process3. AWS Glue also does not support incremental transfers, meaning it would have to copy the entire data set every time, which would be inefficient and costly.

AWS Direct Connect is a service that establishes a dedicated network connection between your on-premises data center and AWS, bypassing the public internet and improving the bandwidth and performance of the data transfer. However, AWS Direct Connect is not a data transfer service by itself, as it requires additional services or tools to copy the data, such as AWS DataSync, AWS Storage Gateway, or AWS CLI. AWS Direct Connect also has some hardware and location requirements, and charges you for the port hours and data transfer out of AWS.

Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration is a feature that enables faster data transfers to Amazon S3 over long distances, using the AWS edge locations and optimized network paths. However, Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration is not a data transfer service by itself, as it requires additional services or tools to copy the data, such as AWS CLI, AWS SDK, or third-party software. Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration also charges you for the data transferred over the accelerated endpoints, and does not guarantee a performance improvement for every transfer, as it depends on various factors such as the network conditions, the distance, and the object size. References:

AWS DataSync

AWS Glue

AWS Glue quotas and limits

[AWS Direct Connect]

[Data transfer options for AWS Direct Connect]

[Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration]

[Using Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration]

The optimal solution for near-real-time querying and visualization of logs is to integrateAmazon CloudWatch LogswithAmazon OpenSearch Serviceusingsubscription 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.

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

Reserved concurrencyallows you to dedicate a portion of your account’s available concurrency to aspecific Lambda function. This ensures that the function always has sufficient capacity, regardless of how many other functions are running. It's more cost-effective than provisioned concurrency, which reserves warm environments at a higher cost.

“You can use reserved concurrency to guarantee that your critical Lambda functions have the capacity to run as needed without being throttled by other functions.”

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

Provisioned concurrency would be overkill unless latency is also a concern for cold starts, which isn’t stated in this case.