DBS-C01 Management and Operations Practice Question
A developer accidentally deleted a critical table from an Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance. Automated backups are enabled with a retention period of 7 days. The deletion occurred 3 hours ago. What is the fastest way to restore the deleted table without affecting other tables?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse the table-level restore feature available in Amazon Aurora (via backtrack or cloning) with standard RDS MySQL, which lacks such granularity and requires a full instance restore for point-in-time recovery.
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
✓
Perform a point-in-time restore of the DB instance to a time just before the deletion, then export the table.
Point-in-time recovery (PITR) allows you to restore the entire DB instance to any second within the automated backup retention period (7 days). By restoring to a time just before the deletion, you can then extract the deleted table using mysqldump or SELECT INTO OUTFILE, and import it back into the original instance. This is the fastest method because it leverages existing automated backups without requiring a manual snapshot or waiting for a full restore of a large instance.
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 the RDS Query Editor to run a flashback query that retrieves the deleted data.
Why it's wrong here
RDS does not support flashback queries; you must restore from backup.
- ✗
Restore the DB instance from the latest manual snapshot and extract the table.
Why it's wrong here
Manual snapshots could be used, but automated backups allow point-in-time recovery, which is faster if you need the exact time before deletion.
- ✗
Restore the table from the automated backup using the AWS Management Console table-level restore feature.
Why it's wrong here
RDS does not support table-level restore from automated backups; you must restore the entire DB instance.
- ✓
Perform a point-in-time restore of the DB instance to a time just before the deletion, then export the table.
Why this is correct
Point-in-time restore creates a new DB instance as it was at the specified time, allowing table extraction without affecting the original instance.
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.