DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question
A company uses Amazon Aurora MySQL for a SaaS application. Each tenant has a separate database. The company wants to implement a centralized monitoring solution that collects performance metrics from all tenant databases. The solution should be cost-effective and require minimal overhead. Which approach should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates assume a centralized database or Lambda-based polling is required for aggregation, but the CloudWatch Agent’s native custom metrics capability provides a simpler, serverless, and cost-effective solution that aligns with the ‘minimal overhead’ requirement.
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
✓
Use Amazon CloudWatch Agent to collect custom metrics from each Aurora instance and aggregate in CloudWatch.
Amazon CloudWatch Agent can be installed on each Aurora instance to collect custom performance metrics (e.g., from performance_schema) and publish them as CloudWatch custom metrics. This approach is cost-effective because it uses CloudWatch’s pay-per-metric model and eliminates the need for a separate aggregation database or continuous data movement. It also requires minimal overhead as the agent handles collection and aggregation natively, with no additional infrastructure to manage.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use AWS DMS to continuously replicate metrics to a central RDS instance.
Why it's wrong here
DMS is not for monitoring.
- ✗
Consolidate all tenants into a single RDS MySQL instance and use separate schemas.
Why it's wrong here
Loss of tenant isolation.
- ✗
Run an AWS Lambda function that queries each database's performance_schema every minute and stores results in S3.
Why it's wrong here
Lambda queries add overhead and cost.
- ✓
Use Amazon CloudWatch Agent to collect custom metrics from each Aurora instance and aggregate in CloudWatch.
Why this is correct
CloudWatch Agent collects metrics with low overhead.
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.