DBS-C01 Management and Operations Practice Question
A company is running an Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance. The DB instance is experiencing high CPU utilization due to a sudden increase in read traffic. The company needs to reduce the load on the primary DB instance with minimal downtime. Which solution should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse Multi-AZ (which provides high availability but does not offload read traffic) with read replicas (which are designed to offload read traffic), leading them to select Option C incorrectly.
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
✓
Create an RDS read replica and redirect read queries to it.
Creating an Amazon RDS read replica allows you to offload read traffic from the primary DB instance to one or more read replicas, which can handle SELECT queries. This reduces CPU utilization on the primary instance with minimal downtime, as read replicas are asynchronous replicas that can be promoted to a primary if needed. Redirecting read queries to the read replica effectively distributes the load without requiring a change to the primary instance's configuration.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Modify the DB instance to a larger instance class.
Why it's wrong here
Modifying the instance class requires a reboot, causing downtime.
- ✗
Use an Amazon ElastiCache cluster to cache frequent queries.
Why it's wrong here
Caching may help but does not directly reduce CPU utilization from database queries.
- ✗
Enable Multi-AZ on the DB instance.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ provides failover but does not distribute read traffic.
- ✓
Create an RDS read replica and redirect read queries to it.
Why this is correct
Read replicas offload read traffic and can be created without downtime.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every DBS-C01 question from scratch — 1,663 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on DBS-C01
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company is running an Amazon RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ DB instance. They notice increased latency during peak hours. The DB instance type is db.r5.large, and the storage is General Purpose SSD (gp2) with 500 GB. The application is read-heavy with frequent SELECT queries. Which action would most likely resolve the latency issue without changing the DB instance class?
medium- A.Enable Performance Insights and analyze queries.
- ✓ B.Create an Amazon RDS read replica in the same region.
- C.Enable Multi-AZ on the existing DB instance.
- D.Increase the allocated storage to 1,000 GB.
Why B: Adding a read replica offloads read traffic from the primary instance, reducing latency. Option A is wrong because enabling Performance Insights is for monitoring and analysis, not directly improving performance. Option C is wrong because Multi-AZ is for high availability, not read scaling. Option D is wrong because increasing storage size may improve IOPS but does not directly address the read load.
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.