DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question
A company is designing a database for a social media application that requires low-latency access to user profiles and support for complex graph queries. Which AWS database service is most suitable for this workload?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates often mistake DynamoDB's low-latency key-value lookups as sufficient for graph queries, overlooking that DynamoDB cannot perform multi-step traversals without multiple round trips and client-side joins, which destroys performance for complex relationship queries.
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
✓
Amazon Neptune
Amazon Neptune is a fully managed graph database service optimized for storing and querying highly connected data. It supports both property graph (Apache TinkerPop/Gremlin) and RDF (SPARQL) models, making it the ideal choice for social media applications that require low-latency traversal of complex relationships, such as friend-of-friend recommendations or influence paths.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon DynamoDB
Why it's wrong here
DynamoDB is a key-value/document database, not graph-optimized.
- ✗
Amazon ElastiCache for Redis
Why it's wrong here
ElastiCache is a cache, not a graph database.
- ✓
Amazon Neptune
Why this is correct
Neptune is a graph database with support for graph queries.
- ✗
Amazon RDS for MySQL
Why it's wrong here
RDS is relational, not native for graph queries.
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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.