DBS-C01 Provisioned IOPS Practice Question
Network Topology
A company is investigating a performance issue with an Amazon Aurora MySQL database. The output of the describe-db-instances command is shown. The application experiences intermittent slowdowns during write-heavy periods. Which change would MOST likely improve write performance?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is that candidates may assume adding Aurora Replicas helps write performance by reducing load, but replicas only serve reads. Write performance is not improved by offloading reads; it requires addressing I/O capacity directly.
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
✓
Increase the provisioned IOPS to 10000
Increasing provisioned IOPS directly improves write throughput by reducing I/O latency. In this scenario, write-heavy periods cause intermittent slowdowns, which are often due to hitting the IOPS limit of the current instance configuration. Option A is incorrect because Aurora Replicas only offload reads and have no effect on write performance. The writer instance still handles all writes regardless of replicas.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Add an Aurora Replica to distribute read traffic and reduce load on the writer
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Aurora Replicas only offload read traffic; they do not improve write performance because the writer instance still handles all writes.
- ✓
Increase the provisioned IOPS to 10000
Why this is correct
Correct. Increasing provisioned IOPS directly addresses I/O bottlenecks during write-heavy periods, thereby improving write throughput.
- ✗
Change StorageType to gp2 and increase AllocatedStorage to 200 GB
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Changing storage type to gp2 (general purpose) may reduce performance compared to io1, and increasing storage alone does not improve write performance if IOPS is the bottleneck.
- ✗
Set StorageEncrypted to false to reduce encryption overhead
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Disabling storage encryption might reduce overhead slightly, but it is not a recommended practice and would not provide as significant a performance improvement as increasing IOPS. Moreover, security compliance often requires encryption.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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