This DEA-C01 practice question tests your understanding of data store management. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company is running a production Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL database. The database experiences high write latency during peak hours. The data engineer suspects that the issue is due to a large number of small transactions. Which action would MOST effectively reduce write latency?
Why wrong: Parallel query speeds up analytical queries, not write transactions.
B
Increase the instance size and use Provisioned IOPS storage
Larger instances provide more CPU and memory, and Provisioned IOPS can reduce I/O latency, helping with write performance under high transaction loads.
C
Enable Aurora Auto Scaling for read replicas
Why wrong: Auto Scaling for read replicas helps with read traffic, not write latency.
D
Enable Performance Insights to identify the bottleneck
Why wrong: Performance Insights is diagnostic only; it does not reduce latency.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Increase the instance size and use Provisioned IOPS storage
Increasing the instance size and using Provisioned IOPS storage directly addresses high write latency by providing more CPU and memory resources to handle transaction processing, while Provisioned IOPS ensures consistent, low-latency I/O for write operations. This is the most effective action because small transactions create high I/O demand, and scaling up the instance with dedicated IOPS reduces contention and write queue depth.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Enable parallel query for the database
Why it's wrong here
Parallel query speeds up analytical queries, not write transactions.
✓
Increase the instance size and use Provisioned IOPS storage
Why this is correct
Larger instances provide more CPU and memory, and Provisioned IOPS can reduce I/O latency, helping with write performance under high transaction loads.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Enable Aurora Auto Scaling for read replicas
Why it's wrong here
Auto Scaling for read replicas helps with read traffic, not write latency.
✗
Enable Performance Insights to identify the bottleneck
Why it's wrong here
Performance Insights is diagnostic only; it does not reduce latency.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse scaling read replicas (which only help read scaling) with solving write latency, or they mistake monitoring tools (like Performance Insights) for performance fixes, when the real solution is to provision more write capacity through larger instances and dedicated IOPS.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Aurora uses a distributed storage subsystem where write operations are committed to a 6-replica quorum across three Availability Zones; small transactions amplify the per-transaction overhead of log writes and acknowledgments. Provisioned IOPS (io1 or io2 volumes) guarantees a minimum I/O rate, eliminating the burst credit exhaustion that can occur with gp2/gp3 volumes under sustained write loads, which is critical for latency-sensitive workloads with many concurrent small writes.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Data Store Management — This question tests Data Store Management — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Increase the instance size and use Provisioned IOPS storage — Increasing the instance size and using Provisioned IOPS storage directly addresses high write latency by providing more CPU and memory resources to handle transaction processing, while Provisioned IOPS ensures consistent, low-latency I/O for write operations. This is the most effective action because small transactions create high I/O demand, and scaling up the instance with dedicated IOPS reduces contention and write queue depth.
What should I do if I get this DEA-C01 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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