AWS Certified Developer Associate DVA-C02 Practice Question

Using an Amazon SQS standard (or FIFO) queue with an associated dead-letter queue (DLQ) is the most effective pattern. SQS automatically tracks the ReceiveCount for each message and, when that count exceeds the configured maxReceiveCount, moves the full message body to the DLQ. The message is durably stored for up to the DLQ's retention period and can be redriven to the source queue after debugging, ensuring that no data is lost.

A Kinesis Data Stream with a Lambda consumer supports on-failure destinations, but only metadata about the failed record is forwarded; the payload itself remains in the stream and eventually expires (24 hours by default, up to 365 days with extended retention). Additional logic is required to replay or persist the failed data. Lambda-level backoff retries or an SQS delay queue provide temporary resiliency but do not offer durable storage for repeatedly failing messages. Therefore, an SQS queue with a properly configured DLQ best satisfies the guarantee of no message loss and straightforward recovery.