Question 1,696 of 1,663
DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
An administrator notices that the CloudWatch metric 'ReadLatency' for an Amazon RDS for SQL Server instance has increased significantly. Which of the following is the most likely cause?
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
✓
The DB instance does not have enough provisioned IOPS.
High ReadLatency indicates that read operations are taking longer than expected. This is most directly caused by insufficient I/O throughput, i.e., not enough provisioned IOPS for the workload. When the database requests more IOPS than are provisioned, I/O operations queue up, increasing latency. Option D is correct because insufficient provisioned IOPS is a primary cause of increased ReadLatency. Option A is incorrect: high CPU utilization can affect overall performance but does not directly cause read latency unless it leads to I/O contention. Option B is incorrect: running out of memory can cause disk swapping, which may increase latency, but it is less direct than I/O throttling. Option C is incorrect: burstable instance classes (like T-series) use CPU credits; exhaustion affects CPU performance, not storage I/O latency.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The DB instance is experiencing high CPU utilization.
Why it's wrong here
High CPU utilization can affect performance but does not directly cause read latency; I/O operations may still complete quickly if IOPS are sufficient.
- ✗
The DB instance is running out of memory.
Why it's wrong here
Running out of memory can cause swapping to disk, which introduces additional I/O, but the most common direct cause of high ReadLatency is insufficient provisioned IOPS.
- ✗
The DB instance is using a burstable instance class that has exhausted its credits.
Why it's wrong here
Burstable instances use CPU credits; credit exhaustion affects CPU performance, not storage I/O latency.
- ✓
The DB instance does not have enough provisioned IOPS.
Why this is correct
Insufficient provisioned IOPS means the database cannot service I/O requests as fast as needed, causing queuing and increased read latency. This is the most likely cause.
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Last reviewed: Jun 20, 2026
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