DEA-C01 Data Store Management Practice Question
A company needs to migrate an on-premises 10 TB PostgreSQL database to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL with minimal downtime. Which AWS service should be used for the migration?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse data transfer services (like Snowball Edge or DataSync) with database migration tools, overlooking that DMS is the only AWS service that supports live, ongoing replication and schema conversion for relational databases like PostgreSQL.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) is the correct choice because it is specifically designed for migrating databases to AWS with minimal downtime. It supports continuous replication from an on-premises PostgreSQL source to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL using change data capture (CDC), allowing the source database to remain operational during the migration.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS Storage Gateway
Why it's wrong here
Storage Gateway is for file/volume storage.
- ✗
AWS Snowball Edge
Why it's wrong here
Snowball is for offline data transfer.
- ✗
AWS DataSync
Why it's wrong here
DataSync is for file transfers, not databases.
- ✓
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)
Why this is correct
DMS supports continuous replication.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every DEA-C01 question from scratch — 1,711 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
2 more ways this is tested on DEA-C01
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company wants to migrate its on-premises MySQL database to Amazon RDS for MySQL with minimal downtime. Which AWS service should be used for the migration?
easy- ✓ A.AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)
- B.AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT)
- C.AWS DataSync
- D.AWS Direct Connect
Why A: AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) is purpose-built for migrating databases to AWS with minimal downtime by using ongoing replication (change data capture, CDC) from the source MySQL database to the target Amazon RDS for MySQL instance. This allows the source to remain fully operational during the migration, meeting the minimal-downtime requirement.
Variation 2. A company is migrating its on-premises MySQL database to Amazon RDS for MySQL. They want to minimize downtime and ensure data consistency. Which AWS service should be used for the migration?
easy- A.AWS S3 Transfer Acceleration
- B.AWS Glue
- ✓ C.AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)
- D.AWS Snowball Edge
Why C: AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) is the correct choice because it is specifically designed for migrating databases to AWS with minimal downtime. DMS supports homogeneous migrations like MySQL to Amazon RDS for MySQL, and it uses ongoing replication (change data capture) to keep the source and target databases in sync during the migration, ensuring data consistency and allowing a cutover with only seconds of downtime.
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DEA-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DEA-C01 exam.