Which Serverless Pair Handles a 30-Minute Kinesis Streaming Job?
Short answer
AE Use Kinesis Data Firehose for serverless ingestion and AWS Fargate on Amazon ECS for the 30-minute job, because Lambda's 15-minute limit rules it out.
Question
Key Takeaways
The exam tests serverless ingestion plus long-running serverless compute, and the trap is choosing Lambda with Step Functions for a job that exceeds Lambda's 15-minute maximum execution time.
This SAA-C03 question tests a scalable, serverless design for near-real-time ingestion and a 30-minute processing job. The correct combination is Kinesis Data Firehose for ingestion and AWS Fargate on Amazon ECS for compute (A, E), because Lambda cannot run 30-minute jobs.
Common mistake: Many candidates pick Lambda with Step Functions (B) because it looks serverless and scalable, but a single Lambda invocation is capped at 15 minutes, so it cannot host the 30-minute processing job described.
Expert Analysis
Why the Answer Is Correct
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose is the right ingestion choice because it is fully managed, serverless, and scales automatically with large or variable streaming volumes, which directly addresses the latency caused by large amounts of incoming data. AWS Fargate on Amazon ECS is the right processing choice because it runs containers serverlessly and supports tasks that can run far longer than 15 minutes, so the 30-minute job is not constrained. Together, A and E satisfy both requirements in the question: scalable ingestion and serverless processing. The combination also avoids the operational burden of managing EC2 instances while still allowing the workload to scale elastically.
Why the Other Options Are Wrong
Option B is incorrect because Lambda functions have a maximum execution timeout of 15 minutes, and Step Functions orchestration does not extend that per-function limit for a single 30-minute processing task. Option C is incorrect because AWS Database Migration Service is designed for database migration and replication, not for ingesting near-real-time application streaming data. Option D is incorrect because EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group are not serverless; they require cluster and instance management and do not meet the stated serverless design requirement. Although D could process the data, it fails the question's explicit constraint and adds unnecessary operational overhead.
Community Comment Notes
As Hkayne and AlvinC2024 noted, Lambda's maximum execution time is 15 minutes, which rules out option B for a 30-minute job; AlvinC2024 states, "The maximum run time for lambda is 15 mins." xBUGx reinforces the same limit with "Lambda maxed to 15mins," showing consensus that B is a timeout trap. Scheldon explains that Kinesis Data Firehose handles data ingestion, so the remaining serverless processing option is Fargate with ECS. Awsbeginner87 similarly summarizes A as real-time ingestion and E as the serverless option through ECS plus Fargate.
Exam Strategy
In a multi-select SAA-C03 scenario, first identify hard technical limits such as Lambda's 15-minute timeout and hard requirements such as serverless, then eliminate options that violate either one. Match ingestion and processing services separately: ask which service ingests streaming data and which service runs the long job without servers. Finally, confirm that both selected options are needed for the two-part requirement rather than choosing two services that perform the same role.
Official Reference
- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/firehose/latest/dev/what-is-this-service.html
- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/gettingstarted-limits.html
- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECS/latest/developerguide/AWS_Fargate.html
These links open the official vendor documentation in a new tab.
Exam Strategy
In a multi-select SAA-C03 scenario, first identify hard technical limits such as Lambda's 15-minute timeout and hard requirements such as serverless, then eliminate options that violate either one. Match ingestion and processing services separately: ask which service ingests streaming data and which service runs the long job without servers. Finally, confirm that both selected options are needed for the two-part requirement rather than choosing two services that perform the same role.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Lambda with Step Functions wrong for the 30-minute job?
Why is Kinesis Data Firehose preferred over AWS DMS for ingestion here?
Community Votes
100% of anonymous learners picked answer AE. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.
Discussion 6 contributions
Compiled from public community threads and reader submissions, lightly edited for clarity. Handles and vote tallies are shown as recorded, and comments reflect the views of individual contributors.
From public community threads 6
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Awsbeginner87 👍 4A-ingesting real-time data E- serverless option ECS+fargate
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Hkayne 👍 3A is correct for ingesting data. B or E both choises are serverless but the difference is the lambda maximum execution time is 15 minutes. So the right option is E. A and E
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Scheldon 👍 3AnswerAE Amazon Kinesis data firehose for data ingesting, and hence output cannot go to EC2, hence Fargate with ECS.
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AlvinC2024 👍 3The maximum run time for lambda is 15 mins.
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mk168898 👍 2Eliminate B because lambda max handle 15minutes.
Show 1 more comment
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xBUGx 👍 5Lambda maxed to 15mins
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