DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question
A company is designing a multi-tenant SaaS application using Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. Each tenant's data must be isolated for security and compliance. The application has a few large tenants and many small tenants. Queries must be able to access data across tenants for reporting, but with strict access controls. Which design best meets these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often assume that physical separation (separate clusters or databases) is always required for compliance, but Aurora PostgreSQL's row-level security can provide logical isolation that meets security requirements while enabling efficient cross-tenant reporting.
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
✓
Use a single Aurora cluster with a separate schema per tenant and implement row-level security policies.
It uses a single Aurora cluster with a separate schema per tenant and row-level security (RLS) policies. This design provides strong tenant isolation at the schema level while allowing cross-tenant reporting queries with strict access controls enforced by RLS policies, which automatically filter rows based on the current session's tenant context. It balances security, compliance, and operational efficiency for a mix of large and small tenants.
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 a single Aurora cluster with a separate schema per tenant and implement row-level security policies.
Why this is correct
Schemas provide logical isolation and RLS enforces access controls per tenant.
- ✗
Create a separate database per tenant in the same Aurora cluster.
Why it's wrong here
Too many databases for small tenants leads to management overhead and connection limits.
- ✗
Create a separate Aurora cluster per tenant.
Why it's wrong here
Cost prohibitive for many small tenants.
- ✗
Use a single Aurora cluster with a single schema but add a tenant_id column to every table.
Why it's wrong here
Without RLS, queries can inadvertently access other tenants' data; also reporting becomes complex.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This DBS-C01 question is part of Courseiva's 1,663-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.