DBS-C01 Management and Operations Practice Question
A database administrator notices that an Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance has experienced a failover during a maintenance window. What is the most likely cause of this failover?
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
✓
A system update was applied during the maintenance window, causing a reboot
The RDS maintenance window is used to apply system updates, which may require a reboot and failover if Multi-AZ is enabled. Option A is wrong because running out of storage does not cause a failover; instead, it would cause the instance to become unavailable. Option B is wrong because promoting a read replica is a manual action, not an automatic failover during maintenance. Option C is wrong because a manual failover is initiated by the administrator, not automatically during the maintenance window.
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 DB instance ran out of storage and automatically failed over
Why it's wrong here
Storage exhaustion causes an outage, not an automated failover.
- ✗
A read replica was promoted to a primary instance
Why it's wrong here
Promoting a read replica does not cause a failover of the source instance.
- ✗
A manual failover was initiated by the administrator
Why it's wrong here
Manual failover is explicitly initiated and would be known to the administrator.
- ✓
A system update was applied during the maintenance window, causing a reboot
Why this is correct
RDS applies patches during maintenance windows; Multi-AZ instances may fail over to reduce downtime.
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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.