Question 667 of 1,663
DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
A company has an Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL database that is experiencing intermittent connection timeouts. The application logs show 'FATAL: remaining connection slots are reserved for non-replication superuser connections'. The database has a max_connections parameter set to 200. The application uses a connection pool. The DBA checks the CloudWatch metric 'DatabaseConnections' and sees it at 195 during peak hours. The application is deployed on AWS Lambda with a provisioned concurrency of 100. The Lambda function creates a new connection for each invocation. What should the DBA do to resolve the 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
✓
Set up Amazon RDS Proxy to manage the database connections from Lambda.
Set up Amazon RDS Proxy. The issue is that Lambda functions create a new connection per invocation, quickly exhausting the connection pool. While the DatabaseConnections metric shows 195 out of 200 max_connections, the Lambda functions are opening connections and not closing them properly, leading to connection exhaustion. RDS Proxy manages connection pooling, reusing connections across invocations, reducing the number of connections needed. Option A is wrong because reducing provisioned concurrency does not address the underlying connection management issue and may impact application performance. Option B is wrong because increasing max_connections could lead to increased memory usage and potential performance degradation. Option D is wrong because decreasing max_connections would make the problem worse by reserving fewer slots.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Reduce the Lambda provisioned concurrency to 50.
Why it's wrong here
This may not be enough and doesn't address connection management.
- ✗
Increase max_connections to 500 to accommodate more connections.
Why it's wrong here
More connections may overload the database.
- ✓
Set up Amazon RDS Proxy to manage the database connections from Lambda.
Why this is correct
RDS Proxy pools connections and reduces the number of connections needed.
- ✗
Decrease max_connections to 100 to reserve more slots.
Why it's wrong here
This would make the problem worse.
Visual reference
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 |
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Last reviewed: Jun 20, 2026
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.
Question Discussion
Share a tip, memory trick, or ask about the reasoning behind this question. Do not post real exam questions, leaked content, braindumps, or copyrighted exam material. Comments are moderated and may be removed without notice.
Sign in to join the discussion.