DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question
A startup is building a social media application that requires a database to store user relationships (followers, following) and support graph queries. The data volume is expected to grow to tens of terabytes. Which AWS database service is most suitable for this workload?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently choose DynamoDB (Option C) because they associate it with NoSQL scalability, but they overlook that adjacency list designs in DynamoDB require multiple queries and client-side logic for graph traversals, making it unsuitable for deep or multi-hop relationship queries at scale.
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
✓
Amazon Neptune.
Amazon Neptune is a fully managed graph database service optimized for storing and querying highly connected data, such as social media user relationships (followers, following). It supports both property graph and RDF models, enabling efficient graph traversal queries using Gremlin or SPARQL, which is ideal for this workload. Neptune scales to tens of terabytes and provides low-latency query performance for complex graph patterns, making it the most suitable choice.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon RDS for MySQL with self-joins.
Why it's wrong here
Self-joins do not scale well for graph queries.
- ✗
Amazon Redshift.
Why it's wrong here
Redshift is for analytical queries, not transactional graph.
- ✗
Amazon DynamoDB with adjacency list design.
Why it's wrong here
DynamoDB is not optimized for graph traversals.
- ✓
Amazon Neptune.
Why this is correct
Neptune is a purpose-built graph database.
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