Question 1,666 of 1,663
DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
A company runs a critical application on Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL. The application team reports that the database occasionally becomes unresponsive for a few seconds. CloudWatch metrics show 'CPUSurplusCreditsCharged' and 'CPUSurplusCredits' are not 0. The instance is a db.t3.medium. What is the likely cause and how should it be fixed?
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 instance is out of CPU credits and is being throttled; switch to a larger or non-burstable instance
T3 instances are burstable and use CPU credits. When credits are exhausted, they can use surplus credits, which incur charges. If the workload is consistently high, the instance may run out of credits and become throttled, causing unresponsiveness. The fix is to switch to T3 unlimited mode (but that incurs charges) or use a non-burstable instance (e.g., M5). Option B is wrong because Enhanced Monitoring provides detailed OS-level metrics but does not prevent CPU credit exhaustion. Option C is wrong because increasing allocated storage does not affect CPU credits; it improves I/O performance. Option D is wrong because enabling Multi-AZ provides high availability and failover but does not resolve CPU credit issues.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
The instance is out of CPU credits and is being throttled; switch to a larger or non-burstable instance
Why this is correct
Correct because T3 instances are burstable; if CPU credits are exhausted, the instance is throttled. Switching to a non-burstable or enabling unlimited mode resolves the issue.
- ✗
Enable Enhanced Monitoring to diagnose the issue
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Enhanced Monitoring provides diagnostic metrics but does not fix CPU credit exhaustion.
- ✗
Increase the allocated storage to improve I/O
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Increasing storage improves I/O but does not affect CPU credits.
- ✗
The instance is experiencing a failover; enable Multi-AZ
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Multi-AZ provides failover redundancy, but the issue is CPU credit exhaustion, not a failover event.
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Last reviewed: Jun 20, 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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