ExamPark
Course menuDEA-C01

Exams / DEA-C01 / Choosing a data store / Question 1

DEA-C01 practice question: Choosing a data store

Data Store Management A free question from our original DEA-C01 practice exam. Try it, then open the answer to see why each option is right or wrong.

Last verified against current AWS documentation ·How we write our questions

A pet insurer's claims portal shows each customer the status of a claim by claim ID. The page must respond in single-digit milliseconds at peak times, and the portal runs about 3,000 lookups per second.

Separately, the actuarial team runs analytics across five years of claim history, and it works in SQL with Athena and Redshift. The two workloads must not slow each other down.

Which storage design meets these requirements?

Choose one answer.

  1. A. Use Amazon Redshift for both workloads, and point the claims portal at a Redshift cluster with a sort key on the claim ID.
  2. B. Store the claim history only in Amazon S3, and let the claims portal query it with Amazon Athena for each lookup.
  3. C. Use DynamoDB keyed by claim ID for the portal, and keep the claim history in S3 for Athena and Redshift analytics, loaded by export or stream.
  4. D. Use Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL for the portal and for the analytics, with read replicas for the actuarial team's reporting.
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: C

  • A. Wrong: Redshift is built for analytic scans and concurrent reporting queries, not for high-volume single-row lookups at millisecond latency. Sort keys help range filters but do not make point reads fast enough for the portal.
  • B. Wrong: Athena queries scan data and take seconds to start, which is too slow for the portal's page loads. The option meets the analytics need but fails the latency requirement.
  • C. Right: Correct. DynamoDB serves single-item reads by key at consistent millisecond latency, which suits the portal. S3 holds the history for Athena and Redshift, so analytics runs without touching the portal's table. Learn more: Best practices for designing and architecting with DynamoDB (opens in a new tab)
  • D. Wrong: Aurora can serve the portal, but the actuarial scans over five years of history would compete with the portal on the same engine. The option does not separate the two workloads as the team asked.

Explanation

Each workload fits a different store. DynamoDB gives single-digit millisecond key lookups for the portal, and S3 with Athena and Redshift handles the multi-year analytics without loading the portal's table. Putting both on one analytic store or one relational engine lets each workload slow the other.

Study

Keep practicing

Answer questions with a score at the end, or practice just this topic with the explanation after each one. No sign-up needed.

Take the free DEA-C01 practice examPractice Choosing a data storeAll Choosing a data store questions

Want more on Choosing a data store? The 5 full-length practice sets have 11 more Choosing a data store questions, 325 in all, none of them in the free exam. One payment of $14.99, no subscription. See the practice sets