Pass the Amazon Web Services AWS Certified Data Engineer Data-Engineer-Associate Questions and answers with CertsForce

The correct answer is B because Apache Iceberg is designed for analytical data lake tables that need schema evolution, transactional consistency, and historical snapshot access. AWS Glue supports Apache Iceberg for data lakes and can read and write Iceberg tables in Amazon S3 through the AWS Glue Data Catalog. The AWS Glue documentation also shows Iceberg tables being created with TBLPROPERTIES ( " format-version " = " 2 " ), which is the correct table format direction for modern Iceberg capabilities. CSV with scheduled conversion does not provide ACID transactions or point-in-time table snapshots. S3 Versioning tracks object versions but does not provide table-level ACID semantics. DynamoDB is not the best fit for an S3-based analytical data lake requirement.

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

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

AWS Glue DataBrew is purpose-built for data profiling and data preparation with minimal operational overhead. A DataBrew profile job automatically analyzes datasets stored in Amazon S3 and generates detailed statistics such as column completeness, distinct values, data types, min/max values, and potential data quality issues. This is exactly what is required before data preparation steps.

The dataset size (100 MB) and Parquet format are fully supported by DataBrew, and no infrastructure provisioning, cluster management, or SQL development is required. The profiling results are produced automatically and can be reviewed directly in the AWS Management Console, making this the most efficient and lowest-effort solution.

Amazon Managed Service for Apache Flink is designed for real-time streaming analytics and introduces unnecessary complexity. Amazon Redshift Spectrum requires schema definition, SQL development, and additional setup, which is excessive for simple profiling. Amazon QuickSight is a visualization and BI service, not a data profiling tool.

Therefore, creating a DataBrew profile job is the most operationally efficient and exam-aligned solution.

AWS Glue DataBrew is a visual data preparation tool that allows you to clean, normalize, and transform data without writing code. You can use DataBrew to create recipes that define the steps to apply to your data, such as filtering, renaming, splitting, or aggregating columns. You can also use DataBrew to run jobs that execute the recipes on your data sources, such as Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, or Amazon Aurora. DataBrew integrates with AWS Glue Data Catalog, which is a centralized metadata repository for your data assets1.

The solution that meets the requirement with the least operational effort is to use AWS Glue DataBrew to create a recipe that uses the COUNT_DISTINCT aggregate function to calculate the number of distinct customers. This solution has the following advantages:

It does not require you to write any code, as DataBrew provides a graphical user interface that lets you explore, transform, and visualize your data. You can use DataBrew to concatenate the columns that contain customer first names and last names, and then use the COUNT_DISTINCT aggregate function to count the number of unique values in the resulting column2.

It does not require you to provision, manage, or scale any servers, clusters, or notebooks, as DataBrew is a fully managed service that handles all the infrastructure for you. DataBrew can automatically scale up or down the compute resources based on the size and complexity of your data and recipes1.

It does not require you to create or update any AWS Glue Data Catalog entries, as DataBrew can automatically create and register the data sources and targets in the Data Catalog. DataBrew can also use the existing Data Catalog entries to access the data in S3 or other sources3.

Option A is incorrect because it suggests creating and running an Apache Spark job in an AWS Glue notebook. This solution has the following disadvantages:

It requires you to write code, as AWS Glue notebooks are interactive development environments that allow you to write, test, and debug Apache Spark code using Python or Scala. You need to use the Spark SQL or the Spark DataFrame API to read the S3 file and calculate the number of distinct customers.

It requires you to provision and manage a development endpoint, which is a serverless Apache Spark environment that you can connect to your notebook. You need to specify the type and number of workers for your development endpoint, and monitor its status and metrics.

It requires you to create or update the AWS Glue Data Catalog entries for the S3 file, either manually or using a crawler. You need to use the Data Catalog as a metadata store for your Spark job, and specify the database and table names in your code.

Option B is incorrect because it suggests creating an AWS Glue crawler to create an AWS Glue Data Catalog of the S3 file, and running SQL queries from Amazon Athena to calculate the number of distinct customers. This solution has the following disadvantages:

It requires you to create and run a crawler, which is a program that connects to your data store, progresses through a prioritized list of classifiers to determine the schema for your data, and then creates metadata tables in the Data Catalog. You need to specify the data store, the IAM role, the schedule, and the output database for your crawler.

It requires you to write SQL queries, as Amazon Athena is a serverless interactive query service that allows you to analyze data in S3 using standard SQL. You need to use Athena to concatenate the columns that contain customer first names and last names, and then use the COUNT(DISTINCT) aggregate function to count the number of unique values in the resulting column.

Option C is incorrect because it suggests creating and running an Apache Spark job in Amazon EMR Serverless to calculate the number of distinct customers. This solution has the following disadvantages:

It requires you to write code, as Amazon EMR Serverless is a service that allows you to run Apache Spark jobs on AWS without provisioning or managing any infrastructure. You need to use the Spark SQL or the Spark DataFrame API to read the S3 file and calculate the number of distinct customers.

It requires you to create and manage an Amazon EMR Serverless cluster, which is a fully managed and scalable Spark environment that runs on AWS Fargate. You need to specify the cluster name, the IAM role, the VPC, and the subnet for your cluster, and monitor its status and metrics.

It requires you to create or update the AWS Glue Data Catalog entries for the S3 file, either manually or using a crawler. You need to use the Data Catalog as a metadata store for your Spark job, and specify the database and table names in your code.

1: AWS Glue DataBrew - Features

2: Working with recipes - AWS Glue DataBrew

3: Working with data sources and data targets - AWS Glue DataBrew

[4]: AWS Glue notebooks - AWS Glue

[5]: Development endpoints - AWS Glue

[6]: Populating the AWS Glue Data Catalog - AWS Glue

[7]: Crawlers - AWS Glue

[8]: Amazon Athena - Features

[9]: Amazon EMR Serverless - Features

[10]: Creating an Amazon EMR Serverless cluster - Amazon EMR

[11]: Using the AWS Glue Data Catalog with Amazon EMR Serverless - Amazon EMR

Option C is correct because AWS Glue workflows are designed to orchestrate multiple ETL jobs, crawlers, and triggers with dependency management and a visual workflow graph. AWS documentation states that Glue workflows can create and visualize complex ETL activities involving multiple jobs and triggers, and that triggers can be configured so that a job starts only when multiple watched jobs satisfy specified completion conditions. AWS also states that a conditional trigger can fire when any or all watched jobs complete with the desired status. That directly matches the requirement to run the first two processes concurrently and begin the third process only after both finish.

This is also the least operational overhead option because the whole workflow stays inside AWS Glue, which already fits the ETL conversion use case from CSV to Parquet on S3 with catalog integration. Option A would work but adds MWAA operational complexity. Option B is more custom and infrastructure-heavy. Option D using Lambda is not ideal for long-running, memory-intensive ETL steps. Therefore, AWS Glue workflows is the most direct and exam-aligned answer.

 AWS Glue workflows are a cost-effective way to orchestrate complex ETL jobs that involve multiple crawlers, jobs, and triggers. AWS Glue workflows allow you to visually monitor the progress and dependencies of your ETL tasks, and automatically handle errors and retries. AWS Glue workflows also integrate with other AWS services, such as Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, and AWS Lambda, among others, enabling you to leverage these services for your data processing workflows. AWS Glue workflows are serverless, meaning you only pay for the resources you use, and you don’t have to manage any infrastructure.

AWS Step Functions, AWS Glue Studio, and Amazon MWAA are also possible options for orchestrating ETL pipelines, but they have some drawbacks compared to AWS Glue workflows. AWS Step Functions is a serverless function orchestrator that can handle different types of data processing, such as real-time, batch, and stream processing. However, AWS Step Functions requires you to write code to define your state machines, which can be complex and error-prone. AWS Step Functions also charges you for every state transition, which can add up quickly for large-scale ETL pipelines.

AWS Glue Studio is a graphical interface that allows you to create and run AWS Glue ETL jobs without writing code. AWS Glue Studio simplifies the process of building, debugging, and monitoring your ETL jobs, and provides a range of pre-built transformations and connectors. However, AWS Glue Studio does not support workflows, meaning you cannot orchestrate multiple ETL jobs or crawlers with dependencies and triggers. AWS Glue Studio also does not support streaming data sources or targets, which limits its use cases for real-time data processing.

Amazon MWAA is a fully managed service that makes it easy to run open-source versions of Apache Airflow on AWS and build workflows to run your ETL jobs and data pipelines. Amazon MWAA provides a familiar and flexible environment for data engineers who are familiar with Apache Airflow, and integrates with a range of AWS services such as Amazon EMR, AWS Glue, and AWS Step Functions. However, Amazon MWAA is not serverless, meaning you have to provision and pay for the resources you need, regardless of your usage. Amazon MWAA also requires you to write code to define your DAGs, which can be challenging and time-consuming for complex ETL pipelines. References:

AWS Glue Workflows

AWS Step Functions

AWS Glue Studio

Amazon MWAA

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

The best solution to meet the requirements of creating a data catalog that includes the IoT data, and allowing the analytics department to index the data, most cost-effectively, is to create an Amazon Athena workgroup, explore the data that is in Amazon S3 by using Apache Spark through Athena, and provide the Athena workgroup schema and tables to the analytics department.

Amazon Athena is a serverless, interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data directly in Amazon S3 using standard SQL or Python1. Amazon Athena also supports Apache Spark, an open-source distributed processing framework that can run large-scale data analytics applications across clusters of servers2. You can use Athena to run Spark code on data in Amazon S3 without having to set up, manage, or scale any infrastructure. You can also use Athena to create and manage external tables that point to your data in Amazon S3, and store them in an external data catalog, such as AWS Glue Data Catalog, Amazon Athena Data Catalog, or your own Apache Hive metastore3. You can create Athena workgroups to separate query execution and resource allocation based on different criteria, such as users, teams, or applications4. You can share the schemas and tables in your Athena workgroup with other users or applications, such as Amazon QuickSight, for data visualization and analysis5.

Using Athena and Spark to create a data catalog and explore the IoT data in Amazon S3 is the most cost-effective solution, as you pay only for the queries you run or the compute you use, and you pay nothing when the service is idle1. You also save on the operational overhead and complexity of managing data warehouse infrastructure, as Athena and Spark are serverless and scalable. You can also benefit from the flexibility and performance of Athena and Spark, as they support various data formats, including JSON, and can handle schema changes and complex queries efficiently.

Option A is not the best solution, as creating an AWS Glue Data Catalog, configuring an AWS Glue Schema Registry, creating a new AWS Glue workload to orchestrate the ingestion of the data that the analytics department will use into Amazon Redshift Serverless, would incur more costs and complexity than using Athena and Spark. AWS Glue Data Catalog is a persistent metadata store that contains table definitions, job definitions, and other control information to help you manage your AWS Glue components6. AWS Glue Schema Registry is a service that allows you to centrally store and manage the schemas of your streaming data in AWS Glue Data Catalog7. AWS Glue is a serverless data integration service that makes it easy to prepare, clean, enrich, and move data between data stores8. Amazon Redshift Serverless is a feature of Amazon Redshift, a fully managed data warehouse service, that allows you to run and scale analytics without having to manage data warehouse infrastructure9. While these services are powerful and useful for many data engineering scenarios, they are not necessary or cost-effective for creating a data catalog and indexing the IoT data in Amazon S3. AWS Glue Data Catalog and Schema Registry charge you based on the number of objects stored and the number of requests made67. AWS Glue charges you based on the compute time and the data processed by your ETL jobs8. Amazon Redshift Serverless charges you based on the amount of data scanned by your queries and the compute time used by your workloads9. These costs can add up quickly, especially if you have large volumes of IoT data and frequent schema changes. Moreover, using AWS Glue and Amazon Redshift Serverless would introduce additional latency and complexity, as you would have to ingest the data from Amazon S3 to Amazon Redshift Serverless, and then query it from there, instead of querying it directly from Amazon S3 using Athena and Spark.

Option B is not the best solution, as creating an Amazon Redshift provisioned cluster, creating an Amazon Redshift Spectrum database for the analytics department to explore the data that is in Amazon S3, and creating Redshift stored procedures to load the data into Amazon Redshift, would incur more costs and complexity than using Athena and Spark. Amazon Redshift provisioned clusters are clusters that you create and manage by specifying the number and type of nodes, and the amount of storage and compute capacity10. Amazon Redshift Spectrum is a feature of Amazon Redshift that allows you to query and join data across your data warehouse and your data lake using standard SQL11. Redshift stored procedures are SQL statements that you can define and store in Amazon Redshift, and then call them by using the CALL command12. While these features are powerful and useful for many data warehousing scenarios, they are not necessary or cost-effective for creating a data catalog and indexing the IoT data in Amazon S3. Amazon Redshift provisioned clusters charge you based on the node type, the number of nodes, and the duration of the cluster10. Amazon Redshift Spectrum charges you based on the amount of data scanned by your queries11. These costs can add up quickly, especially if you have large volumes of IoT data and frequent schema changes. Moreover, using Amazon Redshift provisioned clusters and Spectrum would introduce additional latency and complexity, as you would have to provision and manage the cluster, create an external schema and database for the data in Amazon S3, and load the data into the cluster using stored procedures, instead of querying it directly from Amazon S3 using Athena and Spark.

Option D is not the best solution, as creating an AWS Glue Data Catalog, configuring an AWS Glue Schema Registry, creating AWS Lambda user defined functions (UDFs) by using the Amazon Redshift Data API, and creating an AWS Step Functions job to orchestrate the ingestion of the data that the analytics department will use into Amazon Redshift Serverless, would incur more costs and complexity than using Athena and Spark. AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers13. AWS Lambda UDFs are Lambda functions that you can invoke from within an Amazon Redshift query. Amazon Redshift Data API is a service that allows you to run SQL statements on Amazon Redshift clusters using HTTP requests, without needing a persistent connection. AWS Step Functions is a service that lets you coordinate multiple AWS services into serverless workflows. While these services are powerful and useful for many data engineering scenarios, they are not necessary or cost-effective for creating a data catalog and indexing the IoT data in Amazon S3. AWS Glue Data Catalog and Schema Registry charge you based on the number of objects stored and the number of requests made67. AWS Lambda charges you based on the number of requests and the duration of your functions13. Amazon Redshift Serverless charges you based on the amount of data scanned by your queries and the compute time used by your workloads9. AWS Step Functions charges you based on the number of state transitions in your workflows. These costs can add up quickly, especially if you have large volumes of IoT data and frequent schema changes. Moreover, using AWS Glue, AWS Lambda, Amazon Redshift Data API, and AWS Step Functions would introduce additional latency and complexity, as you would have to create and invoke Lambda functions to ingest the data from Amazon S3 to Amazon Redshift Serverless using the Data API, and coordinate the ingestion process using Step Functions, instead of querying it directly from Amazon S3 using Athena and Spark. References:

What is Amazon Athena?

Apache Spark on Amazon Athena

Creating tables, updating the schema, and adding new partitions in the Data Catalog from AWS Glue ETL jobs

Managing Athena workgroups

Using Amazon QuickSight to visualize data in Amazon Athena

AWS Glue Data Catalog

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?

[Creating and using AWS Lambda UDFs]

[Using the Amazon Redshift Data API]

[What is AWS Step Functions?]

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

AWS Step Functions is a fully managed, serverless orchestration service designed to coordinate multiple AWS services into reliable workflows. Step Functions natively provide automatic retries, error handling, state-level visibility, and execution history, which directly satisfy the requirements for retry logic and monitoring individual pipeline stages.

In this solution, AWS Lambda functions are used for batch data ingestion, AWS Glue jobs handle transformation, and Amazon S3 is used for storage. Step Functions orchestrate these stages while maintaining clear separation of responsibilities. Each step can be configured with retry and catch policies, allowing the workflow to automatically recover from transient failures without manual intervention.

Chaining AWS Glue jobs alone does not provide detailed stage-level visibility or flexible retry control, and setting MaxRetries to 0 contradicts the retry requirement. EventBridge-based pipelines lack native workflow state tracking. Amazon MWAA introduces unnecessary operational overhead, including environment management and Airflow maintenance.

Therefore, using AWS Step Functions to orchestrate Lambda and Glue provides the most scalable, observable, and low-maintenance solution.

The problem described requires identifying matching records even when there is no unique identifier. AWS Lake Formation FindMatches is 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:

FindMatches is 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.