DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question
A company is designing a database for a social media application that needs to handle friend-of-friend queries and recommendation engine traversals. Which AWS database is best suited?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to choose DynamoDB or ElastiCache because they associate social media with key-value or in-memory caching, overlooking that graph databases are specifically designed for relationship-heavy traversals like friend-of-friend 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 ideal for friend-of-friend queries and recommendation engine traversals that require navigating complex relationships with low latency.
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
Not designed for graph traversals; would require multiple queries.
- ✗
Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility)
Why it's wrong here
Document database, not optimized for graph queries.
- ✗
Amazon ElastiCache for Redis
Why it's wrong here
Cache, not a persistent graph database.
- ✓
Amazon Neptune
Why this is correct
Graph database optimized for traversals and relationships.
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Same concept, more angles
2 more ways this is tested on DBS-C01
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. 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?
medium- A.Amazon DynamoDB
- B.Amazon ElastiCache for Redis
- ✓ C.Amazon Neptune
- D.Amazon RDS for MySQL
Why C: 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.
Variation 2. A company is designing a database for a social media application that requires storing user profiles, posts, and follower relationships. The application needs low-latency queries for user timelines and social graph traversals. Which TWO AWS database services should the database specialist consider? (Choose TWO.)
easy- A.Amazon Timestream
- ✓ B.Amazon Neptune
- C.Amazon Redshift
- D.Amazon RDS for MySQL
- ✓ E.Amazon DynamoDB
Why B: Amazon Neptune is a fully managed graph database service optimized for storing and querying highly connected data, such as social graphs. It supports property graph and RDF models, enabling low-latency traversals of follower relationships and user timelines using Gremlin or SPARQL queries.
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.