DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
A financial services company runs a critical PostgreSQL database on Amazon RDS. The DBA needs to ensure that any database failover is detected within 30 seconds. Which monitoring approach should be used to meet this requirement?
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
✓
Subscribe to RDS Event Notifications and create an SNS topic for 'failover' events.
Amazon RDS Event Notifications for 'failover' events are delivered within seconds, meeting the 30-second requirement. Subscribing to SNS topics ensures near real-time notification. Option B is wrong because the 'DatabaseConnections' metric with a 1-minute evaluation period introduces a delay of up to 1 minute, exceeding the 30-second threshold. Option C is wrong because Enhanced Monitoring provides OS-level metrics every second but does not directly indicate a failover event. Option D is wrong because CloudTrail logs API calls with a typical delay of several minutes, not suitable for sub-minute detection.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Subscribe to RDS Event Notifications and create an SNS topic for 'failover' events.
Why this is correct
Event notifications are near real-time and can trigger actions within seconds.
- ✗
Create a CloudWatch alarm on the 'DatabaseConnections' metric with a 1-minute evaluation period.
Why it's wrong here
The alarm period is too long and may not trigger within 30 seconds.
- ✗
Use Enhanced Monitoring to monitor the 'engine' process status every second.
Why it's wrong here
Enhanced Monitoring does not directly signal a failover event.
- ✗
Enable CloudTrail and monitor the 'FailoverDBCluster' API call.
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail logs are typically delivered within minutes, not seconds.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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