Data visualizations

Amazon QuickSight is a native AWS service that is designed to simplify the way we understand our data. As a fast, cloud-powered BI service, QuickSight lets you generate interactive dashboards, perform ad hoc analysis, and obtain insights from your data, regardless of its magnitude. All these activities contain elements of data visualization to facilitate the interpretation of data sets.

A developer would typically use QuickSight to create and publish dashboards containing visualizations for end-users. The service provides ‘Autograph,’ a feature that enables the selection of the most suitable visuals based on the data fields chosen.

Here’s an example of just how easy it is to create a visualization:

• Import your data (QuickSight can connect to various data sources including Amazon RDS, Amazon Aurora, Amazon Redshift, and even Excel files).
• Choose the data you want to visualize.
• QuickSight will automatically suggest the best visualization based on your selected data, or you can choose your preferred visualization option.

The resulting data visualization can be a bar graph, pie chart, scatter plot, heat map, among others.

AWS Data Pipeline – Data Movement and Transformation

While Amazon QuickSight primarily focuses on the aspect of visualizing and understanding data, AWS Data Pipeline focuses on the delivery of data from different AWS services and on-premises data sources. Data Pipeline enables you to integrate data across different AWS services and make it ready for visualization and analysis.

Some use cases of AWS Data Pipeline include:

• Migrating on-premise data to AWS for better scalability.
• Archive data to Amazon S3 or Glacier for backup or long-term storage.
• Data transformation for analysis (for instance, the data ingested may require cleaning or formatting before it can be used for visualization).

Using QuickSight and Data Pipeline Together

When used together, AWS Data Pipeline can retrieve data from assorted sources, process and ready it for analysis, and QuickSight can then take this data and create meaningful visualizations. AWS Data Pipeline can access data from Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon RDS, and other JDBC databases. After extraction, data can be processed in compute services like Amazon EMR and then stored in services like Amazon S3. The processed data residing in S3 can then be visualized in Amazon QuickSight for insightful business intelligence.

Understanding these AWS tools related to data visualization significantly increases your chances of passing the AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02) exam. Data visualization is a potent tool in the hands of a developer, representing complex data in an easily interpretable format, facilitating quicker and more effective decision-making.

As you study for your AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02) exam, remember to get some hands-on practice in these services. AWS offers free tier access for new accounts, providing a perfect way to experiment with these services without incurring additional costs.

Practice Test

True or False: AWS QuickSight is a service that lets you create and publish interactive data visualizations.

• True
• False

Answer: True.

Explanation: AWS QuickSight is a fast, cloud-powered business intelligence service that makes it easy to deliver insights to everyone in your organization.

In AWS QuickSight, what tool do you use to create a data set from new or existing data sources?

• A. Visualizer
• B. Discovery
• C. Spice
• D. Selector

Answer: C. Spice

Explanation: SPICE (Super-fast, Parallel, In-memory Calculation Engine) is an AWS QuickSight feature that lets you create a data set from new or existing data sources.

Multiple Select: Which types of data visualizations can you create using AWS QuickSight?

• A. Bar graphs
• B. Pie charts
• C. Heat maps
• D. Scatter plots

Answer: A. Bar graphs, B. Pie charts, C. Heat maps, D. Scatter plots

Explanation: AWS QuickSight enables you to develop different types of data visualizations including bar graphs, pie charts, heat maps and scatter plots, among others.

True or False: When using AWS QuickSight, you must always load your data into SPICE before you can create a visualization.

• True
• False

Answer: False

Explanation: Although loading data into SPICE can enhance performance, you can create visualizations directly from other data sources as well.

Which AWS service can securely and quickly process large data sets?

• A. AWS QuickSight
• B. AWS S3
• C. AWS Glacier
• D. AWS EMR

Answer: D. AWS EMR

Explanation: AWS EMR (Elastic Map Reduce) provides a managed Hadoop framework that makes it easy to process large amounts of data.

Single Select: Which AWS visualization tool would best complement a real-time application?

• A. AWS QuickSight
• B. AWS DynamoDB Streams
• C. AWS Kinesis Data Stream
• D. AWS CloudTrail

Answer: C. AWS Kinesis Data Stream

Explanation: AWS Kinesis is a platform for streaming data on AWS, offering services to load and analyze streaming data, and provides the ability to build custom streaming data applications.

True or False: AWS QuickSight only supports the creation of static visualizations.

• True
• False

Answer: False

Explanation: AWS QuickSight supports the creation of interactive visualizations where users can drill down into data, filter views, etc.

Single Select: If you want to visualize data in an Amazon S3 bucket, which AWS Service should you use?

• A. AWS S3 Visualizer
• B. AWS QuickSight
• C. AWS CloudWatch
• D. Amazon Athena

Answer: B. AWS QuickSight

Explanation: AWS QuickSight can be used to visualize data from various sources including data in an Amazon S3 bucket.

What is the purpose of Amazon CloudWatch logs?

• A. Image hosting
• B. Monitoring applications
• C. Data visualization
• D. Storage

Answer: B. Monitoring applications.

Explanation: Amazon CloudWatch is used to monitor AWS resources and applications in real-time.

What is the advantage of using AWS Kinesis over AWS QuickSight for data visualization?

Answer: AWS Kinesis allows for real-time data streaming and visualization, whereas QuickSight is more suited for static data visualization.

Can Amazon Athena be used to create data visualizations?

• A. Yes
• B. No

Answer: B. No

Explanation: Amazon Athena is a query service that makes it easy to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. However, it does not provide features to create data visualizations; services such as Quicksight are needed for visualization.

Which AWS service provides a visualization of user activities within your environment?

• A. AWS CloudTrail
• B. AWS IAM
• C. AWS QuickSight
• D. Amazon Athena

Answer: A. AWS CloudTrail

Explanation: AWS CloudTrail provides event history of your AWS account activity, including actions taken through the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, command line tools, and other AWS services, effectively providing a visualization of user activity.

True or False: You can use Amazon QuickSight to draw insights from your data without needing to code or perform complex data modeling.

• True
• False

Answer: True

Explanation: Amazon QuickSight’s ML Insights feature provides machine learning-based insights, forecasts and suggestions, which can help to produce data analysis without the need to code or perform complex data modeling. It enables point-and-click data exploration without requiring technical expertise.

Single Select: How is SPICE related to QuickSight?

• A. SPICE is the database used by QuickSight
• B. SPICE is a feature in QuickSight for storing data
• C. SPICE is an engine in QuickSight for generating graphs
• D. SPICE is a standalone application that is used alongside QuickSight

Answer: B. SPICE is a feature in QuickSight for storing data

Explanation: SPICE (Super-fast, Parallel, In-memory Calculation Engine) is a feature in Amazon QuickSight that is used to store data that was imported from a variety of sources, which enables users to create analyses, perform calculations and present data in the form of visual graphs.

What is the role of AWS Glue in data visualization?

• A. AWS Glue can be used to draw graphs and charts
• B. AWS Glue can extract, transform, and load (ETL) data for analytics
• C. AWS Glue acts as a Data Lake for storing raw data
• D. AWS Glue provides real-time streaming service for data visualization

Answer: B. AWS Glue can extract, transform, and load (ETL) data for analytics

Explanation: AWS Glue is a fully managed ETL service that makes it easy to move data between your data stores. It prepares (ETL) your data for analysis and then can connect to visualization tools like Amazon QuickSight.

Interview Questions

What AWS service would you use to create data visualizations?

You would use Amazon Quicksight to create data visualizations.

How does the SPICE engine in Amazon Quicksight help with data visualization?

The SPICE (Super-fast Parallel In-Memory Calculation) Engine is a calculation engine in Amazon Quicksight that prepares and performs calculations on your data so you can create visualizations quickly and efficiently.

Can you connect Amazon Redshift with Quicksight for data visualization?

Yes, Amazon Quicksight can directly connect to Amazon Redshift to create a data visualization based on your data warehouse.

Can you use APIs with Amazon Quicksight?

Yes, Amazon Quicksight provides a set of APIs that you can use to integrate Quicksight with other applications or automate tasks.

True or False: Amazon Quicksight only supports AWS data sources.

False. Amazon Quicksight supports both AWS and non-AWS data sources including SQL Server, MySQL, S3, and Salesforce.

Can Amazon Quicksight perform data analysis?

Yes, apart from creating visualizations, Amazon Quicksight can also perform data analysis using its feature called ‘ML Insights’ which uses Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing.

Can you share the visualizations created in Amazon Quicksight with others?

Yes, you can share the visualizations created in Amazon Quicksight with others via email or a URL.

How do you secure your data visualizations in Amazon Quicksight?

You can secure your data visualizations in Amazon Quicksight using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to control who has access to your resources.

What is the benefit of using a scheduled refresh in Amazon Quicksight?

By using a scheduled refresh, you can ensure that your visualizations always reflect the latest data.

Can Amazon Quicksight create real-time dashboards?

Yes, Amazon Quicksight can create real-time dashboards using SPICE.

What formats can you export your visualizations as from Amazon Quicksight?

You can export your visualizations from Amazon Quicksight as .CSV and .XLSX files.

Can you use AWS Glue with Amazon Quicksight?

Yes, you can use AWS Glue to prepare and transform your data for Amazon Quicksight.

Can you use Amazon Athena with Quicksight for data visualization?

Yes, Amazon Quicksight can directly connect with Amazon Athena allowing you to create visualizations from your Athena queries.

Can Amazon Quicksight combine data from multiple sources into a single visualization?

Yes, Amazon Quicksight can combine data from multiple sources into a single visualization.

Can you customize the look and feel of your Amazon Quicksight visualizations?

Yes, Amazon Quicksight provides many options for customizing the appearance of your visualizations including colors, layout, and formatting.