DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
A startup is using Amazon DynamoDB for a gaming leaderboard. The table has a partition key of 'game_id' and a sort key of 'score'. The application frequently queries the top 10 scores for a given game. Recently, users have reported that the leaderboard is showing stale data. The DBA checks the CloudWatch metrics and sees no throttling. The table has auto scaling enabled. The application uses eventual consistent reads. The DBA suspects that the issue is related to write conflicts. What should the DBA do to ensure the leaderboard shows the most recent data?
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
✓
Modify the application to use strongly consistent reads for leaderboard queries.
Strongly consistent reads return the most up-to-date data from DynamoDB, ensuring the leaderboard displays the latest scores. Option B is incorrect because DynamoDB Streams capture changes but do not affect read consistency. Option C is incorrect because DAX is a caching layer that may serve stale data, not improve consistency. Option D is incorrect because write capacity adjustments do not address read consistency issues.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Modify the application to use strongly consistent reads for leaderboard queries.
Why this is correct
Strongly consistent reads guarantee that the read returns the most recent write. This directly addresses the stale data issue.
- ✗
Enable DynamoDB Streams and process updates in near-real-time.
Why it's wrong here
DynamoDB Streams provide a time-ordered sequence of item-level changes, but they do not affect the consistency model of reads. The application would still need strongly consistent reads to get the latest data immediately.
- ✗
Enable DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) for caching.
Why it's wrong here
DAX is an in-memory cache that improves read performance but may return cached (stale) data. It does not provide strong consistency.
- ✗
Increase the write capacity units to reduce write throttling.
Why it's wrong here
Write capacity units control throughput, not consistency. Increasing WCU would not solve the stale read problem.
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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.