Key points

• API Gateway publishes authenticated, throttled endpoints for ingestion or governed data lookup.
• The API contract, caller authentication, workload role, authorization, pagination, quotas, and backend errors need separate handling.

Best-known use cases

• Expose authenticated endpoints for data ingestion or lookup.
• Throttle and route API requests to Lambda-based processing logic.

What candidates often confuse it with

• API Gateway governs the API front door; Lambda or another integration performs the underlying processing.

Key takeaway

Choose API Gateway when consumers need a controlled API rather than direct credentials to a data store.

Relevant exam tasks

• D1.2 — Task 1.2: Transform and process data
• 1.2.8 — Create data APIs to make data available to other systems by using AWS services.
• D4.1 — Task 4.1: Apply authentication mechanisms
• 4.1.4 — Set up IAM roles for access (for example, AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, AWS CLI, AWS CloudFormation).

Learn more

• DEA-C01 in-scope services
• DEA-C01 Domain 1: Data Ingestion and Transformation
• DEA-C01 Domain 4: Data Security and Governance