DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
A company is experiencing slow query performance on an Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL DB instance. The DB instance is a db.r5.large with 16 GB RAM and 500 GB gp2 storage. Which metric in Amazon CloudWatch would most directly help identify if the performance issue is due to memory pressure?
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
✓
Monitor FreeableMemory to see if available memory is low.
FreeableMemory shows the amount of available RAM. Low FreeableMemory indicates memory pressure, which can cause swapping and slow queries. Option B is wrong because ReadIOPS measures I/O operations, not memory. Option C is wrong because DatabaseConnections tracks connections, not memory. Option D is wrong because CPUUtilization measures CPU, not memory.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Monitor FreeableMemory to see if available memory is low.
Why this is correct
FreeableMemory directly indicates the amount of available RAM.
- ✗
Monitor ReadIOPS to see if there is a high I/O rate due to swapping.
Why it's wrong here
ReadIOPS indicates I/O activity, not memory pressure directly.
- ✗
Monitor DatabaseConnections to check for a high number of connections consuming memory.
Why it's wrong here
While connections use memory, FreeableMemory is the direct metric for available memory.
- ✗
Monitor CPUUtilization to check for high CPU usage.
Why it's wrong here
CPU utilization indicates processor load, not memory pressure.
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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.