I recently took the beta exam of the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate DEA-C01 online, and from the get-go, I can see its resemblance to the AWS Certified Data Analytics Specialty test, albeit not entirely the same in terms of depth. This new Associate-level exam aims to validate the skills and knowledge of IT Professionals in core data-related AWS services, such as the ability to implement data pipelines, perform cost optimization, troubleshoot data workflow issues, and apply data engineering best practices in AWS.

AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate BETA Exam Details

The beta exams in the AWS Certification program are primarily used to test the initial set of “exam items” or exam questions in terms of performance before it is used in the official exam release. Take note that the beta exam process may or may not be conducted when an official AWS exam has been updated. For instance, the new iteration of the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner test from CLF-C01 to CLF-C02 last September 2023 has no beta offering. If you have successfully passed the beta exam, you will be among the first ones to hold the new certification. Beta exams are usually 50% cheaper as well, although the number of questions is a bit higher than that of the upcoming live version.

The AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate BETA exam has an exam code of DE1-C01 and costs $75 USD. It has 85 questions of either multiple choice or multiple response format that you should complete within 3 hours or 180 minutes. You can take the beta exam at a Pearson VUE testing center or through an online proctored exam. I took the exam using the latter option on a Sunday morning, and my online test went smoothly without any issues on Pearson’s OnVue app. This has a passing score of 720 which is exactly the same as what the upcoming live version would be. Keep in mind that the BETA exam will run from November 27 to January 12 of next year only, so make sure that you book your exam as early as you can to avoid missing out on available slots.

Your test results for the DEA-C01 beta exam will be available after 90 days, and if you pass it, the AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate certification will be credited to your account immediately.  This new Associate-level exam is somewhat a replacement for the AWS Certified Data Analytics – Specialty test, which will be decommissioned on April 8, 2024 next year. It is expected that the AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate test will go live in April, right after the Data Analytics – Specialty DAS-C01 exam has been completely phased out.

In comparison with the AWS Certified Data Analytics – Specialty exam, this new Data Engineer – Associate certification test only covers the high-level overview of data engineering. Data ingestion, data transformation, data store management, data security, and data governance are in scope, but the DEA-C01 exam does not delve deep into the advanced concepts of Observability, Data Collection, Visualization, and the like. There are also quite a few questions related to Machine Learning. Despite this difference, I would say (in my personal estimation) that these two exams are about 70% to 80% similar to each other because the list of related AWS services between the two are almost the same.

Exam Resources for AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate DEA-C01 Exam 

Here’s a list of exam resources that I used to prepare for the BETA exam of the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate exam:

• Official DEA-C01 Exam Guide
• Official DEA-C01 Exam Questions on AWS Skill Builder
• AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate Study Guide
• Free Data Analytics Fundamentals digital course on TD Portal
• Free AWS Glue – Getting Started course on TD Portal

• Free Amazon EMR – Getting Started course on TD Portal
• Tutorials Dojo AWS Cheat Sheets

DEA-C01 AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate Exam Topics

Most of the questions that I encountered are mentioned in the official Exam Guide, but mostly, the DEA-C01 exam topics revolve around AWS Glue, Amazon Athena, AWS Lake Formation and a little bit of Amazon SageMaker. Here’s the list of relevant AWS services that you should focus on:

DEA-C01 Exam Domains 

This official exam guide of the AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate test includes the exam weightings, content domains, and task statements for this certification. Each of these exam domains has its corresponding task statements, which cover the relevant knowledge and skills. However, it is not an exhaustive list and you should only use this as a general guide.

The exam has the following content domains and weightings:

• Domain 1: Data Ingestion and Transformation (34% of scored content)
• Domain 2: Data Store Management (26% of scored content)
• Domain 3: Data Operations and Support (22% of scored content)
• Domain 4: Data Security and Governance (18% of scored content)

AWS Services to Focus On for the DEA-C01 Exam

The AWS Data Engineer Associate exam covers a wide range of concepts and AWS services; which is why you have to know the specific items that you have to focus on so you won’t waste time studying the things that won’t likely be asked in the actual exam. You have to spend more time in learning the following AWS services:

• Amazon Athena
• Amazon Redshift
• Amazon QuickSight
• Amazon EMR (Amazon Elastic MapReduce)
• AWS LakeFormation
• AWS EventBridge
• AWS Glue
  • AWS Glue DataBrew
  • All AWS Glue features
• Amazon Kinesis
  • Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose
  • Amazon Kinesis Data Streams 
• Amazon Managed Service for Apache Flink •
• Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK)

• Amazon OpenSearch Service

Exam Tips for the AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate DEA-C01 Beta Exam

If you are quite new in AWS and Data Engineering, you might find the DEA-C01 exam topics to be challenging as it has a mix of open-source Apache technologies and AWS services. The Apache technologies that are enumerated in the official exam guide, which you can also see in the actual exam, are all related to data engineering, such as Apache Flink, Apache Kafka, Apache Ranger, Apache Pig, Apache Hive, Apache Airflow, Apache Spark, Apache Cassandra et cetera. Different data formats are also included, like Apache ORC (Optimized Row Columnar), Apache Parquet, Apache Avro, and more. Therefore, you have to brush up with all of the relevant open-source programs, data formats and tools in the area of data engineering.

You should also allocate more time to learning and doing hands-on labs for the relevant AWS services such as Amazon Athena, Amazon Redshift, Amazon QuickSight, Amazon EMR (Amazon Elastic MapReduce), AWS LakeFormation, AWS EventBridge, AWS Glue, AWS Glue DataBrew, Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose, Amazon Kinesis Data Streams Amazon Managed Service for Apache Flink, Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK), Amazon OpenSearch Service and others.

It’s also recommended to read the entire exam guide from cover to cover and take note of the relevant data engineering concepts and other AWS services that you have to focus on. You can check out this AWS Certified Data Engineer DEA-C01 Study Guide for more information.