DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question
A company is running a production Amazon RDS for MySQL database that is experiencing performance degradation. Amazon CloudWatch metrics show high CPU utilization and high number of connections. The company has already optimized queries and implemented connection pooling. What is the MOST cost-effective solution to address the high CPU utilization?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers choose RDS Proxy (Option C) assuming it reduces CPU utilization by lowering connection overhead, but the question explicitly states connection pooling is already implemented, so the CPU issue is from compute-bound operations, not connection management.
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
✓
Scale up to a larger DB instance class
Scaling up to a larger DB instance class directly increases the compute capacity (vCPUs and memory) available to the database, which addresses the root cause of high CPU utilization. Since queries are already optimized and connection pooling is in place, the remaining bottleneck is the instance's processing power, making a vertical scale-up the most cost-effective solution to handle the sustained CPU load without introducing additional architectural complexity.
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 Read Replicas to offload read traffic
Why it's wrong here
Read Replicas offload reads, but CPU on primary may still be high if writes are the issue.
- ✗
Change the storage type to Provisioned IOPS (io1)
Why it's wrong here
Provisioned IOPS improves I/O, not CPU.
- ✗
Enable RDS Proxy to reduce database connections
Why it's wrong here
Connection pooling is already implemented; RDS Proxy further reduces overhead but not CPU.
- ✓
Scale up to a larger DB instance class
Why this is correct
More CPU capacity directly addresses high CPU utilization.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,663 original DBS-C01 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. 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.