DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
A database administrator is troubleshooting an Amazon RDS for SQL Server instance that is experiencing high 'ReadIOPS' and 'ReadLatency'. The instance uses General Purpose SSD (gp2) storage. The 'BurstBalance' metric is 0%. What should the administrator do to improve performance?
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
✓
Increase the allocated storage or switch to Provisioned IOPS
When BurstBalance is 0%, the gp2 volume has exhausted its burst credits and is operating at baseline IOPS. To improve performance, you can increase the volume size (which increases baseline IOPS) or switch to Provisioned IOPS (io1/io2) for consistent performance. Option A is wrong because enabling Multi-AZ does not increase I/O performance; it provides high availability. Option C is wrong because creating a read replica offloads read traffic but does not improve write performance or reduce latency on the primary instance. Option D is wrong because disabling automatic backups reduces storage I/O but does not directly improve ReadIOPS or ReadLatency; the primary issue is exhausted burst credits.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable Multi-AZ to distribute the load
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ provides redundancy, not performance improvement.
- ✓
Increase the allocated storage or switch to Provisioned IOPS
Why this is correct
Increasing volume size increases baseline IOPS for gp2; switching to io1/io2 provides consistent IOPS.
- ✗
Create a read replica to offload read traffic
Why it's wrong here
Read replicas help with read scaling but not with write I/O.
- ✗
Disable automatic backups to reduce I/O
Why it's wrong here
Backups may cause some I/O but are not the root cause.
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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.