Data-Engineer-Associate AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate (DEA-C01) Questions and Answers

 Changing the distribution key to the table column that has the largest dimension will help to balance the load more evenly across all five compute nodes. The distribution key determines how the rows of a table are distributed among the slices of the cluster. If the distribution key is not chosen wisely, it can cause data skew, meaning some slices will have more data than others, resulting in uneven CPU load and query performance. By choosing the table column that has the largest dimension, meaning the column that has the most distinct values, as the distribution key, the data engineer can ensure that the rows are distributed more uniformly across the slices, reducing data skew and improving query performance.

The other options are not solutions that will meet the requirements. Option A, changing the sort key to be the data column that is most often used in a WHERE clause of the SQL SELECT statement, will not affect the data distribution or the CPU load. The sort key determines the order in which the rows of a table are stored on disk, which can improve the performance of range-restricted queries, but not the load balancing. Option C, upgrading the reserved node from ra3.4xlarge to ra3.16xlarge, will not maintain the current number of compute nodes, as it will increase the cost and the capacity of the cluster. Option D, changing the primary key to be the data column that is most often used in a WHERE clause of the SQL SELECT statement, will not affect the datadistribution or the CPU load either. The primary key is a constraint that enforces the uniqueness of the rows in a table, but it does not influence the data layout or the query optimization. References:

Choosing a data distribution style

Choosing a data sort key

Working with primary keys

To identify the reason why the Step Functions state machine is not able to run the EMR jobs, the company should take the following steps:

Verify that the Step Functions state machine code has all IAM permissions that are necessary to create and run the EMR jobs. The state machine code should have an IAM role that allows it to invoke the EMR APIs, such as RunJobFlow, AddJobFlowSteps, and DescribeStep. The state machine code should also have IAM permissions to access the Amazon S3 buckets that the EMR jobs use as input and output locations. The company can use Access Analyzer for S3 to check the access policies and permissions of the S3 buckets12. Therefore, option B is correct.

Query the flow logs for the VPC. The flow logs can provide information about the network traffic to and from the EMR cluster that is launched in the VPC. The company can use the flow logs to determine whether the traffic that originates from the EMR cluster can successfully reach the data providers, such as Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, or other external sources. The company can also determine whether any security group that might be attached to the EMR cluster allows connections to the data source servers on the informed ports. The company can use Amazon VPC Flow Logs or Amazon CloudWatch Logs Insights to query the flow logs3 . Therefore, option D is correct.

Option A is incorrect because it suggests using AWS CloudFormation to automate the Step Functions state machine deployment. While this is a good practice to ensure consistency and repeatability of the deployment, it does not help to identify the reason why the state machine is not able to run the EMR jobs. Moreover, creating a step to pause the state machine during the EMR jobs that fail and wait for a human user to send approval through an email message is not a reliable way to troubleshoot the issue. The company should use the Step Functions console or API to monitor the execution historyand status of the state machine, and use Amazon CloudWatch to view the logs and metrics of the EMR jobs .

Option C is incorrect because it suggests changing the AWS Step Functions state machine code to use Amazon EMR on EKS. Amazon EMR on EKS is a service that allows you to run EMR jobs on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) clusters. While this service has some benefits, such as lower cost and faster execution time, it does not support all the features and integrations that EMR on EC2 does, such as EMR Notebooks, EMR Studio, and EMRFS. Therefore, changing the state machine code to use EMR on EKS may not be compatible with the existing data pipeline and may introduce new issues.

Option E is incorrect because it suggests checking the retry scenarios that the company configured for the EMR jobs. While this is a good practice to handle transient failures and errors, it does not help to identify the root cause of why the state machine is not able to run the EMR jobs. Moreover, increasing the number of seconds in the interval between each EMR task may not improve the success rate of the jobs, and may increase the execution time and cost of the state machine. Configuring an Amazon SNS topic to store the error messages may help to notify the company of any failures, but it does not provide enough information to troubleshoot the issue.

Apache Parquet is a columnar storage format that is much more space-efficient than row-based formats like CSV, especially for analytics workloads. Transforming data from CSV to Parquet significantly reduces storage costs and improves query performance. According to the study guide:

“Parquet is a columnar storage file format that is optimized for use with analytics workloads, providing efficient storage and fast query performance.”

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

By switching to Parquet, the company can reduce both storage size and retrieval times, making it the optimal choice for cost-effective data analysis.

 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]

When processingmany small files, the overhead of managing partitions can degrade performance. Rather than scaling workers manually, enablingAWS Glue auto scalingdynamically adjusts worker count based on resource requirements, which iscost-effectiveand addresses the performance concern.

“AWS Glue auto scaling automatically adds or removes workers based on the workload, which is efficient for handling performance bottlenecks when working with many small files.”

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

Manually scaling up workers or increasing their size (A, B) can be more expensive and less adaptive.

The ecommerce company wants to migrate its data pipelines into the AWS Cloud without managing servers, and the solution must orchestrate Python and Bash scripts without refactoring code.Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (Amazon MWAA)is the most suitable solution for this scenario.

Option B: Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (Amazon MWAA)MWAA is a managed orchestration service that supportsPython and Bash scriptsvia Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) for workflows. It is a serverless, managed version of Apache Airflow, which is commonly used for orchestrating complex data workflows, making it an ideal choice for migrating existing pipelines without refactoring. It supports Python, Bash, and other scripting languages, and the company would not need to manage the underlying infrastructure.

Other options:

AWS Lambda (Option A)is more suited for event-driven workflows but would require breaking down the pipeline into individual Lambda functions, which may require refactoring.

AWS Step Functions (Option C)is good for orchestration but lacks native support for Python and Bash without using Lambda functions, and it may require code changes.

AWS Glue (Option D)is an ETL service primarily for data transformation and not suitable for orchestrating general scripts without modification.

Problem Analysis:

The company needscross-account accessto allow QuickSight inBI-Accountto interact with anS3 bucket in Hub-Account.

The bucket is encrypted with anAWS KMS key.

Appropriate permissions must be set for bothS3 accessandKMS decryption.

Key Considerations:

QuickSight requiresIAM permissionsto access S3 data and decrypt files using the KMS key.

Both S3 and KMS permissions need to be properly configured across accounts.

Solution Analysis:

Option A: Use Existing KMS Key for Encryption

While the existing KMS key is used for encryption, it must also grant decryption permissions to QuickSight.

Option B: Add S3 Bucket to QuickSight Role

Granting S3 bucket access to the QuickSight service role is necessary for cross-account access.

Option C: AWS RAM for Bucket Sharing

AWS RAM is not required; bucket policies and IAM roles suffice for granting cross-account access.

Option D: IAM Policy for KMS Access

QuickSight’s service role in BI-Account needs explicit permissions to use the KMS key for decryption.

Option E: Add KMS Key as Resource for Role

The KMS key must explicitly list the QuickSight role as an entity that can access it.

Implementation Steps:

S3 Bucket Policy in Hub-Account:Add a policy to the S3 bucket granting the QuickSight service role access:

json

{

"Version": "2012-10-17",

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Allow",

"Principal": { "AWS": "arn:aws:iam:::role/service-role/QuickSightRole" },

"Action": "s3:GetObject",

"Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::/*"

}

]

}

KMS Key Policy in Hub-Account:Add permissions for the QuickSight role:

{

"Version": "2012-10-17",

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Allow",

"Principal": { "AWS": "arn:aws:iam:::role/service-role/QuickSightRole" },

"Action": [

"kms:Decrypt",

"kms:DescribeKey"

],

"Resource": "*"

}

]

}

IAM Policy for QuickSight Role in BI-Account:Attach the following policy to the QuickSight service role:

{

"Version": "2012-10-17",

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Allow",

"Action": [

"s3:GetObject",

"kms:Decrypt"

],

"Resource": [

"arn:aws:s3:::/*",

"arn:aws:kms:::key/"

]

}

]

}

AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) is a service that helps you migrate databases to AWS quickly and securely. You can use AWS DMS to migrate the Hive metastore from the on-premises Hadoop clusters into Amazon S3, which is a highly scalable, durable, and cost-effective object storage service. AWS Glue Data Catalog is a serverless, managed service that acts as a central metadata repository for your data assets. You can use AWS Glue Data Catalog to scan the Amazon S3 bucket that contains the migrated Hive metastore and create a data catalog that is compatible with Apache Hive and other AWS services. This solution meets the requirements of migrating the data catalog into a persistent storage solution and using a serverless solution. This solution is also the most cost-effective, as it does not incur any additional charges for running Amazon EMR or Amazon Aurora MySQL clusters. The other options are either not feasible or not optimal. Configuring a Hive metastore in Amazon EMR (option B) or an external Hive metastore in Amazon EMR (option C) would require running and maintaining Amazon EMR clusters, which would incur additional costs and complexity. Using Amazon Aurora MySQL to store the company’s data catalog (option C) would also incur additional costs and complexity, as well as introduce compatibility issues with Apache Hive. Configuring a new Hive metastore in Amazon EMR (option D) would not migrate the existing data catalog, but create a new one, which would result in data loss and inconsistency. References:

Using AWS Database Migration Service

Populating the AWS Glue Data Catalog

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide, Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Visualization, Section 4.2: AWS Glue Data Catalog

 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)

In Amazon Redshift, acompound sort keyis 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 ofRegion ID,Department ID, andRole 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 theRegion IDandDepartment 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 includesboth 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 Eare less optimal because they do not utilize the sort key as effectively:

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

Option Duses onlyRole 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 Efilters onRegion IDandRole IDbut skips theDepartment IDcolumn, making it less efficient for the compound sort key.

 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]

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.

 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]

S3 Intelligent-Tiering is a storage class that automatically moves objects between four access tiers based on the changing access patterns. The default access tier consists of two tiers: Frequent Access and Infrequent Access. Objects in the Frequent Access tier have the same performance and availability as S3 Standard, while objects in the Infrequent Access tier have the same performance and availability as S3 Standard-IA. S3 Intelligent-Tiering monitors the access patterns of each object and moves them between the tiers accordingly, without any operational overhead or retrieval fees. This solution can optimize S3 storage costs for data with unpredictable and variable access patterns, while ensuring millisecond latency for data retrieval. The other solutions are not optimal or relevant for this requirement. Using S3 Storage Lens standard metrics and activity metrics can provide insights into the storage usage and access patterns, but they do not automate the data movement between storage classes. Creating S3 Lifecycle policies for the S3 buckets can move objects to more cost-optimized storage classes, but they require manual configuration and maintenance, and they may incur retrieval fees fordata that is accessed unexpectedly. Activating the Deep Archive Access tier for S3 Intelligent-Tiering can further reduce the storage costs for data that is rarely accessed, but it also increases the retrieval time to 12 hours, which does not meet the requirement of millisecond latency. References:

S3 Intelligent-Tiering

S3 Storage Lens

S3 Lifecycle policies

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

 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 RedshiftSpectrum, 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.

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.

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

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 theS3 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 stillneeds 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 ofS3 Standardfor that period ensures compliance with regulatory requirements. After 30 days, transitioning toS3 Standard-IAcontinues 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 toS3 Standard-IAdirectly 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): UsingS3 Standard-IA for all recordswould 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.

The original query does not return results for all of the products because the year column in the sales_data table is not an integer, but a timestamp. Therefore, the WHERE clause does not filter the data correctly, and only returns the products that have a null value for the year column. To fix this, the data engineer should use the extract function to extract the year from the timestamp and compare it with 2023. This way, the query will return the correct results for all of the products in the sales_data table. The other options are either incorrect or irrelevant, as they do not address the root cause of the issue. Replacing sum with count does not change the filtering condition, adding HAVING clause does not affect the grouping logic, and removing the GROUP BY clause does not solve the problem of missing products. References:

Troubleshooting JSON queries - Amazon Athena (Section: JSON related errors)

When I query a table in Amazon Athena, the TIMESTAMP result is empty (Section: Resolution)

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide (Chapter 7, page 197)

The best solution to ensure that the AWS Glue Data Catalog synchronizes with the S3 storage when the company adds new partitions to the bucket with the least latency is to use code that writes data to Amazon S3 to invoke the Boto3 AWS Glue create partition API call. This way, the Data Catalog is updated as soon as new data is written to S3, and the partition information is immediately available for querying by other services. The Boto3 AWS Glue create partition API call allows you to create a new partition in the Data Catalog by specifying the table name, the database name, and the partition values1. You can use this API call in your code that writes data to S3, such as a Python script or an AWS Glue ETL job, to create a partition for each new S3 object key that matches the partitioning scheme.

Option A is not the best solution, as scheduling an AWS Glue crawler to run every morning would introduce a significant latency between the time new data is written to S3 and the time the Data Catalog is updated. 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. Crawlers can be scheduled to run periodically, such as daily or hourly, but they cannot run continuously or in real-time. Therefore, using a crawler to synchronize the Data Catalog with the S3 storage would not meet the requirement of the least latency.

Option B is not the best solution, as manually running the AWS Glue CreatePartition API twice each day would also introduce a significant latency between the time new data is written to S3 and the time the Data Catalog is updated. Moreover, manually running the API would require more operational overhead and human intervention than using code that writes data to S3 to invoke the API automatically.

Option D is not the best solution, as running the MSCK REPAIR TABLE command from the AWS Glue console would also introduce a significant latency between the time new data is written to S3 and the time the Data Catalog is updated. The MSCK REPAIR TABLE command is a SQL command that you can run in the AWS Glue console to add partitions to the Data Catalog based on the S3 object keys that match the partitioning scheme3. However, this command is not meant to be run frequently or in real-time, as it can take a long time to scan the entire S3 bucket and add the partitions. Therefore, using this command to synchronize the Data Catalog with the S3 storage would not meet the requirement of the least latency. References:

AWS Glue CreatePartition API

Populating the AWS Glue Data Catalog

MSCK REPAIR TABLE Command

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

AWS Step Functions natively emitsstate change eventstoAmazon EventBridge, which can trigger anAmazon SNS notification. This is the most direct and real-time way to alert on success/failure without relying on custom logging or polling.

“Step Functions automatically emits status changes that EventBridge can capture to trigger alerts or workflows. Use EventBridge to invoke an SNS topic for real-time alerts on job status.”

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

This provides real-time alerting and the least operational overhead.

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

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.

To meet both encryption at rest and in transit, a single Amazon EMR security configuration can be created specifying the AWS KMS key for encryption at rest and the PEM file for in-transit encryption. The study guide clearly states:

“AWS Key Management Service (KMS) provides encryption for data at rest, and SSL/TLS ensures encryption for data in transit, providing end-to-end encryption within an AWS environment.”

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

A single security configuration is sufficient and the cleanest way to apply these security features during EMR cluster setup.

The problem described requires identifying matching records even when there is no unique identifier. AWS Lake FormationFindMatchesis designed for this purpose. It uses machine learning (ML) to deduplicate and find matching records in datasets that do not share a common identifier.

D. Train and use the AWS Lake Formation FindMatches transform in the ETL job:

FindMatchesis a transform available in AWS Lake Formation that uses ML to discover duplicate records or related records that might not have a common unique identifier.

It can be integrated into an AWS Glue ETL job to perform deduplication or matching tasks.

FindMatches is highly effective in scenarios where records do not share a key, such as customer records from different sources that need to be merged or reconciled.

 Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. DynamoDB offers two capacity modes for throughput capacity: provisioned and on-demand. In provisioned capacity mode, you specify the number of read and write capacity units per second that you expect your application to require. DynamoDB reserves the resources to meet your throughput needs with consistent performance. In on-demand capacity mode, you pay per request and DynamoDB scales the resources up and down automatically based on the actual workload. On-demand capacity mode is suitable for unpredictable workloads that can vary significantly over time1.

The solution that meets the requirements in the most cost-effective way is to use AWS Application Auto Scaling to schedule higher provisioned capacity for peak usage times and lower capacity during off-peak times. This solution has the following advantages:

It allows you to optimize the cost and performance of your DynamoDB table by adjusting the provisioned capacity according to your predictable workload patterns. You can use scheduled scaling to specify the date and time for the scaling actions, and the new minimum and maximum capacity limits. For example, you can schedule higher capacity for every Monday morning and lower capacity for weekends2.

It enables you to take advantage of the lower cost per unit of provisioned capacity mode compared to on-demand capacity mode. Provisioned capacity mode charges a flat hourly rate for the capacity you reserve, regardless of how much you use. On-demand capacity mode charges for each read and write request you consume, with no minimum capacity required. For predictable workloads, provisioned capacity mode can be more cost-effective than on-demand capacity mode1.

It ensures that your application performs consistently during peak usage times by having enough capacity to handle the increased load. You can also use auto scaling to automatically adjust the provisioned capacity based on the actual utilization of your table, and set a target utilization percentage for your table or global secondary index. This way, you can avoid under-provisioning or over-provisioning your table2.

Option A is incorrect because it suggests increasing the provisioned capacity to the maximum capacity that is currently present during peak load times. This solution has the following disadvantages:

It wastes money by paying for unused capacity during off-peak times. If you provision the same high capacity for all times, regardless of the actual workload, you are over-provisioning your table and paying for resources that you don’t need1.

It does not account for possible changes in the workload patterns over time. If your peak load times increase or decrease in the future, you may need to manually adjust the provisioned capacity to match the new demand. This adds operational overhead and complexity to your application2.

Option B is incorrect because it suggests dividing the table into two tables and provisioning each table with half of the provisioned capacity of the original table. This solution has the following disadvantages:

It complicates the data model and the application logic by splitting the data into two separate tables. You need to ensure that the queries are evenly distributed across both tables, and that the data is consistent and synchronized between them. This adds extra development and maintenance effort to your application3.

It does not solve the problem of adjusting the provisioned capacity according to the workload patterns. You still need to manually or automatically scale the capacity of each table based on the actual utilization and demand. This may result in under-provisioning or over-provisioning your tables2.

Option D is incorrect because it suggests changing the capacity mode from provisioned to on-demand. This solution has the following disadvantages:

It may incur higher costs than provisioned capacity mode for predictable workloads. On-demand capacity mode charges for each read and write request you consume, with no minimum capacity required. For predictable workloads, provisioned capacity mode can be more cost-effective than on-demand capacity mode, as you can reserve the capacity you need at a lower rate1.

It may not provide consistent performance during peak usage times, as on-demand capacity mode may take some time to scale up the resources to meet the sudden increase in demand. On-demand capacity mode uses adaptive capacity to handle bursts of traffic, but it may not be able to handle very large spikes or sustained high throughput. In such cases, you may experience throttling or increased latency.

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

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

 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

The performance issue in Amazon Redshift Spectrum queries arises due to the nature of CSV files, which are row-based storage formats. Spectrum is more optimized for columnar formats, which significantly improve performance by reducing the amount of data scanned. Also, partitioning data based on relevant columns like order date can further reduce the amount of data scanned, as queries can focus only on the necessary partitions.

A. Configure the third-party application to create the files in a columnar format:

Columnar formats(like Parquet or ORC) store data in a way that is optimized for analytical queries because they allow queries to scan only the columns required, rather than scanning all columns in a row-based format like CSV.

Amazon Redshift Spectrum works much more efficiently with columnar formats, reducing the amount of data that needs to be scanned, which improves query performance.

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.

The FLEX execution class allows you to run AWS Glue jobs on spare compute capacity instead of dedicated hardware. This can reduce the cost of running non-urgent or non-time sensitive data integration workloads, such as testing and one-time data loads. The FLEX execution class is available for AWS Glue 3.0 Spark jobs. The other options are not as cost-effective as FLEX, because they either use dedicated resources (STANDARD) or do not affect the cost at all (Spot Instance type and GlueVersion). References:

Introducing AWS Glue Flex jobs: Cost savings on ETL workloads

Serverless Data Integration – AWS Glue Pricing

AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate DEA-C01 Complete Study Guide (Chapter 5, page 125)

 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

 Option C is the best solution to meet the requirements with the least effort because server-side encryption with AWS KMS keys (SSE-KMS) is a feature that allows you toencrypt data at rest in Amazon S3 using keys managed by AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS). AWS KMS is a fully managed service that enables you to create and manage encryption keys for your AWS services and applications. AWS KMS also allows you to define granular access policies for your keys, such as who can use them to encrypt and decrypt data, and under what conditions. By using SSE-KMS, you can protect your S3 objects by using encryption keys that only specific employees can access, without having to manage the encryption and decryption process yourself.

Option A is not a good solution because it involves using AWS CloudHSM, which is a service that provides hardware security modules (HSMs) in the AWS Cloud. AWS CloudHSM allows you to generate and use your own encryption keys on dedicated hardware that is compliant with various standards and regulations. However, AWS CloudHSM is not a fully managed service and requires more effort to set up and maintain than AWS KMS. Moreover, AWS CloudHSM does not integrate with Amazon S3, so you have to configure the process that writes to S3 to make calls to CloudHSM to encrypt and decrypt the objects, which adds complexity and latency to the data protection process.

Option B is not a good solution because it involves using server-side encryption with customer-provided keys (SSE-C), which is a feature that allows you to encrypt data at rest in Amazon S3 using keys that you provide and manage yourself. SSE-C requires you to send your encryption key along with each request to upload or retrieve an object. However, SSE-C does not provide any mechanism to restrict access to the keys that encrypt the objects, so you have to implement your own key management and access control system, which adds more effort and risk to the data protection process.

Option D is not a good solution because it involves using server-side encryption with Amazon S3 managed keys (SSE-S3), which is a feature that allows you to encrypt data at rest in Amazon S3 using keys that are managed by Amazon S3. SSE-S3 automatically encrypts and decrypts your objects as they are uploaded and downloaded from S3. However, SSE-S3 does not allow you to control who can access the encryption keys or under what conditions. SSE-S3 uses a single encryption key for each S3 bucket, which is shared by all users who have access to the bucket. This means that you cannot restrict access to the keys that encrypt the objects by specific employees, which does not meet the requirements.

Amazon Neptune supports graph applications usingGremlinandSPARQLas query languages. Neptune is a fully managed graph database service that supports bothproperty graphandRDF graphmodels.

Option A: GremlinGremlin is a query language forproperty graphdatabases, which is supported by Amazon Neptune. It allows the traversal and manipulation of graph data in the property graph model.

Option D: SPARQLSPARQL is a query language for queryingRDF graphdata in Neptune. It is used to query, manipulate, and retrieve information stored in RDF format.

Other options:

SQL (Option B)andANSI SQL (Option C)are traditional relational database query languages and are not used for graph databases.

Spark SQL (Option E)is related to Apache Spark for big data processing, not for querying graph databases.

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.

Publishing AWS Glue data quality scores to Amazon DataZone requires creating aDQDL ruleset, scheduling it to run regularly, and then linking the corresponding AWS Glue table as a data source in the DataZone project. The setup ensures that data quality scores from Glue are correctly published and accessible within Amazon DataZone:

“You can define DQDL rulesets for Glue tables and publish the data quality results to DataZone when the project is configured with an AWS Glue data source and the rulesets are scheduled.”

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

OptionCfollows the expected flow without unnecessary complexity and aligns perfectly with theintegration flow supported by AWS.

The company wants to use Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose to transform CSV files intoJSONformat and store the files inApache Parquetformat 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.

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.

 The error message indicates that the AWS Glue job cannot access the Amazon S3 bucket through the VPC endpoint. This could be because the VPC’s route table does not have the necessary routes to direct the traffic to the endpoint. To fix this, the data engineer must verify that the route table has an entry for the Amazon S3 service prefix (com.amazonaws.region.s3) with the target as the VPC endpoint ID. This will allow the AWS Glue job to use the VPC endpoint to access the S3 bucket without going through the internet or a NAT gateway. For more information, see Gateway endpoints. References:

Troubleshoot the AWS Glue error “VPC S3 endpoint validation failed”

Amazon VPC endpoints for Amazon S3

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

The issue described is that theAWS Glue jobis reprocessing files from previous runs despite the bookmark feature being enabled. Bookmarks in AWS Glue allow jobs to keep track of which files or data have already been processed to avoid reprocessing. The most likely reason for reprocessing the files is missingS3 permissions, specificallys3

s3

is a permission required by AWS Glue when bookmarks are enabled to ensure Glue can retrieve metadata from the files in S3, which is necessary for the bookmark mechanism to function correctly. Without this permission, Glue cannot track which files have been processed, resulting in reprocessing during subsequent runs.

Concurrency settings (Option B)andthe version of AWS Glue (Option C)do not affect the bookmark behavior. Similarly, the lack of acommit statement (Option D)is not applicable in this context, as Glue handles commits internally when interacting with Redshift and S3.

Thus, the root cause is likely related to insufficient permissions on the S3 bucket, specificallys3

, which is required for bookmarks to work as expected.

TheRootDiskUsedmetric 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 toexpand the broker storageto accommodate growing data volumes. Additionally,auto-expansionof storage can be configured to ensure that storage grows automatically as the data increases.