Question 838 of 1,663
DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
A team manages an Amazon Aurora MySQL database. They observe that the 'Deadlocks' metric in CloudWatch is spiking. The application uses a single writer instance and multiple read replicas. Which action is most effective at reducing deadlocks?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse load-related issues (e.g., high CPU or connections) with deadlocks, and incorrectly choose scaling or read replica offloading, when deadlocks are fundamentally a locking order and transaction duration problem.
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
✓
Review application code to ensure transactions are as short as possible and access tables in a consistent order.
Deadlocks in Aurora MySQL occur when two or more transactions hold locks that the other needs, and they wait indefinitely. The most effective way to reduce deadlocks is to keep transactions short and access tables in a consistent order, which minimizes lock contention and avoids circular wait conditions. This directly addresses the root cause of deadlocks, unlike scaling or redirecting traffic, which only reduce the probability of contention without fixing the underlying locking pattern.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the instance size to handle more concurrent connections.
Why it's wrong here
Concurrency is not the direct cause; deadlocks are about lock order.
- ✗
Redirect read traffic to read replicas to reduce load on the writer.
Why it's wrong here
Read replicas do not handle writes; deadlocks occur during writes.
- ✗
Enable Multi-AZ to distribute the load.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ does not affect locking behavior.
- ✓
Review application code to ensure transactions are as short as possible and access tables in a consistent order.
Why this is correct
Minimizing transaction duration and accessing resources in a fixed order reduces deadlock probability.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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