DBS-C01 Management and Operations Practice Question
A company has an Amazon DynamoDB table with on-demand capacity mode. The table is used by a serverless application. The company wants to receive an alert when the read request rate exceeds a certain threshold. Which CloudWatch metric and alarm should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse throttling events (ReadThrottleEvents) with actual consumption, but the question asks for an alert when the read request rate exceeds a threshold, which requires monitoring consumption, not throttling.
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
✓
Alarm on the 'ConsumedReadCapacityUnits' metric.
The 'ConsumedReadCapacityUnits' metric reflects the actual number of read capacity units consumed by the table. By setting an alarm on this metric, you can trigger an alert when the read request rate exceeds a defined threshold, which is appropriate for an on-demand table where capacity scales automatically but you still want to monitor usage.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Alarm on the 'ConsumedReadCapacityUnits' metric.
Why this is correct
This metric shows actual read usage.
- ✗
Alarm on the 'ReadThrottleEvents' metric.
Why it's wrong here
This metric indicates throttling, not request rate.
- ✗
Alarm on the 'ProvisionedReadCapacityUnits' metric.
Why it's wrong here
This metric is not applicable to on-demand tables.
- ✗
Alarm on the 'SuccessfulRequestLatency' metric.
Why it's wrong here
This metric measures latency, not request rate.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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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.