DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question
A company is designing a database for an e-commerce platform that requires high availability and automatic failover with minimal downtime. The application performs both OLTP and read-heavy analytics. Which AWS database service should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates choose Amazon RDS for MySQL because they assume Multi-AZ provides automatic failover and read replicas for analytics, but they overlook that Aurora offers faster failover, better read replica performance, and integrated storage replication without the need for separate Multi-AZ configuration.
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 Aurora
Amazon Aurora is the correct choice because it combines the high availability and automatic failover of a relational database with the performance needed for both OLTP and read-heavy analytics. Aurora provides six-way replication across three Availability Zones, automatic failover in under 30 seconds, and supports up to 15 low-latency read replicas that can offload analytics queries without impacting write performance.
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 NoSQL database and does not support complex relational queries typical in OLTP.
- ✗
Amazon RDS for MySQL
Why it's wrong here
RDS for MySQL has limited read replica support and slower failover compared to Aurora.
- ✗
Amazon Redshift
Why it's wrong here
Redshift is optimized for analytics and data warehousing, not for OLTP workloads.
- ✓
Amazon Aurora
Why this is correct
Aurora offers high availability, automatic failover, and up to 15 read replicas for analytics.
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