DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
A company has an Amazon DynamoDB table with auto scaling enabled. During a traffic spike, the application experiences high write latencies. Which action should the company take to troubleshoot the latency issue?
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
✓
Monitor the ThrottledWriteEvents metric in CloudWatch.
ThrottledWriteEvents metric indicates write requests that were throttled due to exceeding provisioned capacity. If this metric spikes during traffic spikes, it suggests that auto scaling is not scaling fast enough, leading to high write latencies. Option B is incorrect because switching to on-demand is a remediation, not a troubleshooting step; it does not help identify the root cause. Option C is incorrect because disabling auto scaling and manually increasing capacity might solve the issue temporarily but is not a troubleshooting approach; it bypasses auto scaling logic. Option D is incorrect because read capacity does not affect write latencies.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Monitor the ThrottledWriteEvents metric in CloudWatch.
Why this is correct
Correct. Monitoring ThrottledWriteEvents in CloudWatch helps determine if auto scaling is keeping up with write demand. Elevated throttling indicates that provisioned capacity is insufficient, leading to high latencies.
- ✗
Switch the table to on-demand capacity mode.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Switching to on-demand capacity mode is a long-term solution or cost optimization, not a troubleshooting step to diagnose the latency issue. It does not help identify why auto scaling is insufficient.
- ✗
Disable auto scaling and manually increase write capacity.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Disabling auto scaling and manually increasing write capacity may resolve symptoms but does not help troubleshoot the root cause. It also negates the benefits of auto scaling.
- ✗
Increase the read capacity of the table.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Increasing read capacity does not improve write latency because read and write capacity are independent in DynamoDB.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DBS-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 DBS-C01 exam.