DEA-C01 Data Store Management Practice Question
A company runs a MySQL database on Amazon RDS. The database size is 500 GB and is experiencing high read traffic. The team wants to improve read performance with minimal operational overhead. Which action should they take?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse Multi-AZ (high availability) with read scaling, leading candidates to select Multi-AZ deployment thinking it improves read performance, when in fact the standby is not accessible for reads.
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
✓
Create a read replica in the same region
Creating a read replica in the same region offloads read traffic from the primary RDS instance by providing a separate, read-only copy of the database. This directly addresses high read traffic with minimal operational overhead, as RDS manages the asynchronous replication using MySQL's native binlog-based replication. The replica can serve SELECT queries, reducing load on the primary instance without requiring application changes.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Create a read replica in the same region
Why this is correct
A read replica offloads read traffic from the primary MySQL instance via asynchronous replication, directly addressing the high read volume. It requires no application rewrite and minimal operational effort, satisfying the minimal-overhead constraint. Multi-AZ standby would not serve reads, and sharding adds substantial complexity.
- ✗
Enable Multi-AZ deployment
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ maintains a synchronous standby for failover, and its replica does not serve read traffic, so read load is unchanged. It is tempting because Multi-AZ improves availability and resilience, which is the right choice when the requirement is fault tolerance rather than read scaling.
- ✗
Implement Amazon ElastiCache for caching
Why it's wrong here
ElastiCache requires application changes to read from and invalidate the cache, adding operational overhead the stem excludes; read replicas offload reads without code changes. It is tempting because caching reduces database read load, which is correct when the application can be modified and cache coherence managed.
- ✗
Upgrade to a larger instance class
Why it's wrong here
A larger instance class scales the primary vertically, but the primary still serves all reads, and resizing causes downtime; read replicas distribute read traffic. It is tempting because vertical scaling raises capacity, which is the right choice when the bottleneck is CPU or memory on a single node.
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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.