This DBS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of management and operations. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company needs to ensure that all changes to an Amazon RDS DB instance are logged for auditing purposes. Which AWS service should be enabled?
AWS CloudTrail
CloudTrail records all RDS API calls for auditing.
AWS Config
Why wrong: AWS Config evaluates resource compliance but does not log all API calls.
Amazon GuardDuty
Why wrong: GuardDuty is for threat detection, not audit logging.
Amazon Inspector
Why wrong: Inspector is for vulnerability assessment, not audit logging.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
AWS CloudTrail
AWS CloudTrail is the correct service because it records API activity for Amazon RDS, including calls to create, modify, or delete DB instances, as well as changes to security groups, parameter groups, and automated backups. CloudTrail logs these events to an S3 bucket or CloudWatch Logs, providing a durable audit trail for all management-plane operations on the RDS DB instance. This directly meets the requirement to log all changes for auditing purposes.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
AWS CloudTrail
Why this is correct
CloudTrail records all RDS API calls for auditing.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config evaluates resource compliance but does not log all API calls.
Amazon GuardDuty
Why it's wrong here
GuardDuty is for threat detection, not audit logging.
Amazon Inspector
Why it's wrong here
Inspector is for vulnerability assessment, not audit logging.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse AWS Config (which tracks configuration changes) with CloudTrail (which tracks API calls), but Config only records the state of resources after a change, not the who, what, or when of the API action that caused it.
Detailed technical explanation
CloudTrail captures all RDS API calls (e.g., CreateDBInstance, ModifyDBInstance, DeleteDBInstance, RebootDBInstance) as management events, which are logged with the identity of the caller (IAM user or role), source IP, and timestamp. For data-plane events (e.g., SQL queries), CloudTrail does not capture them; instead, you would need to enable advanced audit features like RDS Enhanced Monitoring or database-native audit logs (e.g., using the MariaDB audit plugin or Oracle Unified Audit). A common real-world scenario is a security team needing to investigate an unauthorized modification to a DB instance’s backup retention period; CloudTrail provides the exact API call and the IAM principal that made it.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
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FAQ
Management and Operations — This question tests Management and Operations — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: AWS CloudTrail — AWS CloudTrail is the correct service because it records API activity for Amazon RDS, including calls to create, modify, or delete DB instances, as well as changes to security groups, parameter groups, and automated backups. CloudTrail logs these events to an S3 bucket or CloudWatch Logs, providing a durable audit trail for all management-plane operations on the RDS DB instance. This directly meets the requirement to log all changes for auditing purposes.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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.
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