DAS-C01 Question #123: Real Exam Question with Answer & Explanation

Question

A human resources company maintains a 10-node Amazon Redshift cluster to run analytics queries on the company's data. The Amazon Redshift cluster contains a product table and a transactions table, and both tables have a product_sku column. The tables are over 100 GB in size. The majority of queries run on both tables. Which distribution style should the company use for the two tables to achieve optimal query performance?

Options

• AAn EVEN distribution style for both tables
• BA KEY distribution style for both tables
• CAn ALL distribution style for the product table and an EVEN distribution style for the transactions
• DAn EVEN distribution style for the product table and an KEY distribution style for the transactions

Explanation

{"question_number": 2, "correct_answer": "B", "explanation": "KEY distribution style on the shared join column (product_sku) for both tables ensures that rows with the same key value are co-located on the same Redshift node. Since the majority of queries join both tables on product_sku, this eliminates costly data redistribution across nodes during query execution, maximizing join performance. Option A (EVEN) distributes rows randomly, causing data movement at join time. Option C (ALL for product table) works for small dimension tables but is inefficient for tables over 100 GB because every node stores a full copy. Option D mixes EVEN and KEY, which still results in data redistribution during joins.", "generated_by": "claude-sonnet", "llm_judge_score": 4}

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