DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A company runs a production Amazon Redshift cluster. The data engineering team notices that queries are running slowly during peak hours. The cluster's CPU utilization is consistently above 80%. Which action should the engineer take to improve query performance?
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
✓
Perform an elastic resize to add more nodes.
Performing an elastic resize allows adding nodes to the Redshift cluster, increasing CPU capacity and resolving the CPU bottleneck. Option A is incorrect: moving tables to Redshift Spectrum offloads queries to S3 but does not reduce CPU usage on the cluster for existing queries. Option B is incorrect: re-distributing tables might improve data distribution but does not directly address high CPU utilization. Option C is incorrect: concurrency scaling helps with many concurrent queries by adding transient capacity, but it does not reduce CPU usage on the main cluster; it may even increase it.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Move some tables to Amazon Redshift Spectrum.
Why it's wrong here
Spectrum processes data in S3, not cluster CPU.
- ✗
Re-distribute the tables using a different distribution key.
Why it's wrong here
Distribution tuning affects data movement, not CPU.
- ✗
Enable concurrency scaling.
Why it's wrong here
Concurrency scaling adds clusters for read queries, not CPU-bound.
- ✓
Perform an elastic resize to add more nodes.
Why this is correct
Elastic resize adds nodes and CPU capacity quickly.
Visual reference
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,711 original DEA-C01 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.