DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
A company is using Amazon DynamoDB for a session management application. The application is experiencing higher latency during peak hours. The DynamoDB table uses on-demand capacity. Which TWO steps should a database specialist take to diagnose the issue?
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
✓
Check the CloudWatch metric for ThrottledRequests to see if any requests are being throttled.
Checking ThrottledRequests helps identify if requests are being throttled, even with on-demand. Reviewing PartitionKey metrics helps detect hot partitions. ReadCapacityUnits and WriteCapacityUnits are not applicable for on-demand. Latency metrics show end-to-end performance but are less diagnostic.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Review the table's ReadCapacityUnits and WriteCapacityUnits to ensure they are sufficient.
Why it's wrong here
On-demand does not use provisioned capacity.
- ✗
Examine the CloudWatch metric for UserErrors to identify client-side issues.
Why it's wrong here
UserErrors indicate client errors, not latency.
- ✓
Check the CloudWatch metric for ThrottledRequests to see if any requests are being throttled.
Why this is correct
Throttling can cause increased latency.
- ✗
Enable DynamoDB Streams to capture all write events for analysis.
Why it's wrong here
Streams are for change data capture, not latency diagnosis.
- ✓
Analyze the PartitionKey metrics to detect if a single partition is receiving a disproportionate amount of traffic.
Why this is correct
Hot partitions can cause latency.
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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.