DEA-C01 Data Store Management Practice Question
A media company stores video metadata in Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL. The database is 500 GB and experiences high write traffic. The data engineer notices that the transaction log (WAL) is growing rapidly, causing storage issues. The company needs to retain backups for 30 days for compliance. The database is currently using automated backups with a retention period of 7 days. Which solution should the engineer implement to address the WAL growth while meeting compliance requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is that candidates may think that increasing backup retention to 30 days (Option C) meets compliance and helps WAL cleanup, but in reality, longer retention retains more WAL segments, exacerbating storage issues. The correct approach is to decouple compliance backups (via manual snapshots) from automated backups, which control WAL retention.
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 manual snapshots daily and delete automated backups.
Creating manual snapshots daily and reducing or eliminating automated backups addresses WAL growth. Automated backups in RDS for PostgreSQL depend on WAL files to enable point-in-time recovery. By disabling automated backups or setting a very short retention period, RDS can purge WAL segments more aggressively, preventing accumulation. Manual snapshots can be retained for 30 days to meet compliance requirements without relying on WAL. Increasing backup retention (Option C) would worsen WAL storage, while streaming WAL to S3 (Option D) is not natively supported in RDS. Option B only adds storage without addressing the root cause.
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 manual snapshots daily and delete automated backups.
Why this is correct
Correct. By creating manual snapshots daily and reducing or disabling automated backups, the WAL retention is minimized, reducing storage. Manual snapshots provide 30-day retention for compliance.
- ✗
Change the instance type to a larger one with more storage.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Changing instance type or adding storage does not control WAL growth; it only temporarily alleviates space issues.
- ✗
Increase the backup retention period to 30 days.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Increasing backup retention to 30 days actually retains more WAL files, causing further growth. This worsens the storage issue.
- ✗
Configure the database to stream WAL files to Amazon S3.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL does not support direct streaming of WAL files to S3. This feature is not available.
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
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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.