DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question
A company needs to store and manage user sessions for a web application. The application runs on multiple EC2 instances, and sessions must be accessible from any instance. The team wants a fully managed, highly available, and low-latency solution. Which AWS service should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often choose Amazon DynamoDB because it is fully managed and highly available, but they overlook the specific requirement for 'low-latency' (sub-millisecond) that only an in-memory cache like ElastiCache for Redis can provide, and they miss that DynamoDB's latency is higher due to disk I/O and consistency models.
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 ElastiCache for Redis
Amazon ElastiCache for Redis is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed, in-memory data store with sub-millisecond latency, making it ideal for storing user session data that must be accessed from any EC2 instance. Redis supports atomic operations and data structures (e.g., TTL-based key expiration) that are well-suited for session management, and its replication and Multi-AZ failover ensure high availability. This meets the requirement for a fully managed, highly available, and low-latency solution without the overhead of managing a database cluster.
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 RDS for MySQL
Why it's wrong here
RDS is a relational database with higher latency, not optimal for session storage.
- ✓
Amazon ElastiCache for Redis
Why this is correct
Redis is ideal for session storage with low latency and high availability.
- ✗
Amazon DynamoDB
Why it's wrong here
DynamoDB can be used but is typically slower than Redis for session management.
- ✗
Amazon S3
Why it's wrong here
S3 is object storage, not suitable for frequent read/write session data.
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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.