DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
A company uses Amazon DynamoDB for a highly transactional application. The application is experiencing increased latency and throttled requests. The operations team notices that the DynamoDB table's read and write capacity utilization is consistently near 100%. The table uses on-demand capacity mode. What is the MOST likely cause of the throttling?
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 table has reached the per-table throughput limit for on-demand mode.
On-demand DynamoDB tables have a per-table throughput limit (e.g., 40,000 read/write units per second). When sustained traffic exceeds this limit, requests are throttled. Option B is incorrect because global table replication does not cause throttling; it replicates writes asynchronously. Option C is incorrect because DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) is a read cache that reduces latency, but throttling still occurs if the table itself reaches its throughput limit. Option D is incorrect because adaptive capacity automatically handles hot partitions by splitting them; however, the primary cause here is hitting the on-demand throughput limit, not a partition design issue.
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 table has reached the per-table throughput limit for on-demand mode.
Why this is correct
On-demand mode has a maximum throughput per table; exceeding it causes throttling.
- ✗
The table is configured as a global table and cross-region replication is causing write conflicts.
Why it's wrong here
Global tables can cause conflicts but not throttling.
- ✗
The application is not using DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) to cache reads.
Why it's wrong here
DAX helps with read latency but cannot prevent throttling if write capacity is exceeded.
- ✗
The table's partition key design is causing hot partitions, and adaptive capacity is not enabled.
Why it's wrong here
Adaptive capacity is always enabled for on-demand, so hot partitions are handled.
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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on DBS-C01
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A developer is troubleshooting an application that uses Amazon DynamoDB. The application sometimes receives ProvisionedThroughputExceededException errors. The table has on-demand capacity mode. The errors occur in short bursts. What is the most likely cause?
medium- A.The table has a low read/write capacity mode limit that needs to be increased.
- B.The global secondary index (GSI) has a different throughput limit.
- C.The table has reached the maximum provisioned throughput.
- ✓ D.The request rate exceeds the partition's throughput capacity in a short burst.
Why D: On-demand capacity mode can handle up to the table's previous peak traffic. However, if traffic spikes suddenly, DynamoDB might throttle. Option D is correct because on-demand has a limit on the maximum throughput per partition. Option A is wrong because indexes share the table's capacity. Option B is wrong because on-demand does not have provisioned limits. Option C is wrong because the table is on-demand, not provisioned.
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.