This DBS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of workload-specific database design. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company is migrating an on-premises MongoDB database to AWS. They need a managed database service that is compatible with MongoDB and supports automated backups, scaling, and high availability. Which service should they use?
Amazon DynamoDB
Why wrong: DynamoDB is key-value, not document-oriented with MongoDB compatibility.
Amazon RDS for MySQL
Why wrong: RDS MySQL is relational and not MongoDB-compatible.
Amazon Neptune
Why wrong: Neptune is for graph data, not document storage.
Amazon DocumentDB
DocumentDB is MongoDB-compatible and offers the required managed features.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Amazon DocumentDB
Amazon DocumentDB is a fully managed, MongoDB-compatible document database service designed for workloads that require MongoDB's document model, query patterns, and APIs. It supports automated backups (continuous backups to S3 with point-in-time recovery), automatic scaling of storage and compute, and multi-AZ high availability with synchronous replication across three Availability Zones, making it the correct choice for migrating an on-premises MongoDB database to a managed AWS service.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
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 key-value, not document-oriented with MongoDB compatibility.
Amazon RDS for MySQL
Why it's wrong here
RDS MySQL is relational and not MongoDB-compatible.
Amazon Neptune
Why it's wrong here
Neptune is for graph data, not document storage.
Amazon DocumentDB
Why this is correct
DocumentDB is MongoDB-compatible and offers the required managed features.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Amazon DynamoDB's document support (JSON-like items) with MongoDB compatibility, but DynamoDB does not support MongoDB's wire protocol, query operators, or aggregation pipeline, making it a non-trivial migration requiring significant application rewrites.
Detailed technical explanation
Amazon DocumentDB implements the MongoDB 4.0 and 4.2 wire protocol, allowing most MongoDB drivers and tools (e.g., mongodump, mongorestore) to connect without modification, but it does not support all MongoDB features such as multi-document ACID transactions across shards or the $lookup aggregation stage with uncorrelated subqueries. Under the hood, DocumentDB uses a distributed storage volume that replicates data six ways across three Availability Zones, with automatic failover in under 30 seconds, and storage scales automatically from 10 GB to 128 TB without downtime. A real-world scenario where this matters is migrating a MongoDB application that relies heavily on secondary indexes or TTL indexes, which DocumentDB supports, but if the application uses MongoDB's change streams with resume tokens, DocumentDB's implementation has subtle differences that may require driver version adjustments.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
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FAQ
Workload-Specific Database Design — This question tests Workload-Specific Database Design — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Amazon DocumentDB — Amazon DocumentDB is a fully managed, MongoDB-compatible document database service designed for workloads that require MongoDB's document model, query patterns, and APIs. It supports automated backups (continuous backups to S3 with point-in-time recovery), automatic scaling of storage and compute, and multi-AZ high availability with synchronous replication across three Availability Zones, making it the correct choice for migrating an on-premises MongoDB database to a managed AWS service.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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.
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