DBS-C01 Management and Operations Practice Question
A company is using Amazon DynamoDB with on-demand capacity for a serverless web application. The application experiences occasional throttling. The DynamoDB table has a simple primary key (partition key only). The throttled requests are related to a small number of partition keys. What is the MOST likely cause?
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
✓
The partition key design leads to uneven access patterns, causing a hot partition.
Throttling on a few partition keys indicates a hot partition. Option A is wrong because on-demand capacity handles overall traffic, but partition-level limits still apply. Option C is wrong because a simple primary key is fine, but the data distribution is the issue. Option D is wrong because on-demand capacity automatically scales, but not per partition beyond the limit.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
On-demand capacity has a per-partition throughput limit that is too low.
Why it's wrong here
On-demand capacity has a partition-level limit, but the issue is hot partition, not the limit itself.
- ✓
The partition key design leads to uneven access patterns, causing a hot partition.
Why this is correct
A hot partition exceeds the partition's throughput limit, causing throttling.
- ✗
The table uses a composite primary key, which limits throughput.
Why it's wrong here
Composite key does not inherently limit throughput; it's about distribution.
- ✗
The table's read/write capacity mode is set to provisioned instead of on-demand.
Why it's wrong here
On-demand is enabled; throttling is due to partition-level limits.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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.