DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
A company has an Amazon DynamoDB table with on-demand capacity. Users report that write requests are occasionally throttled during peak hours. The application uses the AWS SDK and retries with exponential backoff. Which monitoring approach should be used to identify the cause of 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
✓
Monitor CloudWatch metrics for ThrottledRequests and ConsumedWriteCapacityUnits.
CloudWatch metrics such as ThrottledRequests and ConsumedWriteCapacityUnits directly indicate throttling events and capacity usage, enabling identification of throttling causes even with on-demand capacity. Option A is incorrect because AWS CloudTrail logs API calls but does not provide detailed throttling metrics at the item level. Option B is incorrect because VPC Flow Logs capture network traffic, not database-level throttling. Option D is incorrect because DynamoDB Streams capture item-level changes, not throttling events.
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 AWS CloudTrail to monitor PutItem API calls for throttling errors.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. AWS CloudTrail logs API calls but does not provide detailed throttling metrics or capacity consumption data needed to identify the cause of throttling.
- ✗
Analyze VPC Flow Logs to check for network congestion.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. VPC Flow Logs capture network traffic metadata, not database-level throttling events or capacity usage.
- ✓
Monitor CloudWatch metrics for ThrottledRequests and ConsumedWriteCapacityUnits.
Why this is correct
Correct. CloudWatch metrics such as ThrottledRequests and ConsumedWriteCapacityUnits directly indicate when throttling occurs and how much capacity is being consumed, allowing identification of the cause.
- ✗
Enable DynamoDB Streams and process records to monitor throttled requests.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. DynamoDB Streams capture a time-ordered sequence of item-level changes but do not include throttling events or capacity metrics.
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JA
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.