DBS-C01 Deployment and Migration Practice Question
A financial services company is migrating a 10 TB Oracle data warehouse to Amazon Redshift. The source database uses a combination of partitioned tables, indexes, and materialized views. The migration team plans to use AWS SCT and DMS. Which approach should the team take to optimize query performance after migration?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates familiar with traditional RDBMS concepts (indexes, table partitioning) assume they apply directly to Redshift, but Redshift uses a fundamentally different architecture where distribution and sort keys are the primary performance levers.
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
✓
Define appropriate distribution keys and sort keys
Amazon Redshift is a columnar data warehouse that does not support traditional indexes or the PARTITION BY clause used in Oracle. Instead, query performance in Redshift is optimized by defining appropriate distribution keys (to minimize data shuffling across nodes) and sort keys (to enable zone maps and reduce the amount of data scanned). This approach directly addresses the performance needs of the migrated 10 TB data warehouse.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Create indexes on frequently queried columns
Why it's wrong here
Redshift does not use indexes; it uses distribution and sort keys.
- ✗
Recreate all materialized views using standard views
Why it's wrong here
Redshift supports materialized views; standard views may not provide the same performance.
- ✓
Define appropriate distribution keys and sort keys
Why this is correct
These are the primary performance optimization mechanisms in Redshift.
- ✗
Partition tables by date using the PARTITION BY clause
Why it's wrong here
Redshift does not support traditional partitioning; use distribution and sort keys.
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