DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
A company is using Amazon DynamoDB and wants to monitor the read/write capacity utilization of a table. Which ONE AWS service can be used to set up alarms for capacity consumption?
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
✓
Amazon CloudWatch
Amazon CloudWatch (D) is the primary service for monitoring DynamoDB capacity metrics such as ConsumedReadCapacityUnits and ConsumedWriteCapacityUnits, and it can trigger alarms based on thresholds. Option C (Amazon CloudWatch Logs) is not used for direct capacity monitoring because DynamoDB does not emit capacity consumption logs; those metrics are available only through CloudWatch Metrics. DynamoDB Auto Scaling (A) adjusts capacity but does not monitor or alarm. AWS CloudTrail (B) records API calls, not capacity metrics. AWS Config (E) tracks configuration changes, not utilization.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon DynamoDB Auto Scaling
Why it's wrong here
Auto Scaling adjusts capacity but does not monitor or alarm.
- ✗
AWS CloudTrail
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail records API activity, not capacity consumption.
- ✗
Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Why it's wrong here
Amazon CloudWatch Logs is not used to directly monitor DynamoDB capacity utilization. Capacity metrics are published to CloudWatch Metrics, not CloudWatch Logs. While you could potentially ingest metrics via custom logs, DynamoDB does not natively produce capacity logs, so this is not a standard approach.
- ✓
Amazon CloudWatch
Why this is correct
Amazon CloudWatch provides metrics for DynamoDB read/write capacity consumption and allows you to set alarms on these metrics. It is the direct and correct service for monitoring capacity utilization.
- ✗
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config tracks resource configurations, not capacity.
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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.