Question 793 of 1,663
DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question
A company has a multi-player game that uses DynamoDB to store game state. The access pattern is write-heavy, and the game state for each active game session is updated frequently. The team notices throttling on the table during peak hours. The table has a partition key of game_id and no sort key. What design change would best reduce throttling?
⚠ Common exam trap
The DBS-C01 exam often tests the misconception that increasing capacity or adding caching solves write throttling, but the real issue is partition-level hot spots that require key distribution strategies like random suffixes.
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
✓
Use a composite key with a random suffix on the partition key.
The write-heavy access pattern with frequent updates to the same game sessions causes throttling because all writes for a given game_id hit the same partition, creating a hot partition. Using a composite key with a random suffix on the partition key distributes the writes across multiple partitions, reducing the per-partition write throughput and alleviating throttling.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Use a composite key with a random suffix on the partition key.
Why this is correct
Write sharding distributes writes across multiple partitions, reducing hot spots.
- ✗
Enable DynamoDB global tables.
Why it's wrong here
Global tables provide multi-region replication, not write throughput increase.
- ✗
Enable DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) for the table.
Why it's wrong here
DAX caches reads, not writes.
- ✗
Increase the provisioned read capacity units (RCU).
Why it's wrong here
Read capacity does not affect write throttling.
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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026
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