DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question
An e-commerce application stores order data in Amazon RDS for MySQL. The database has grown to 1.5 TB and the company needs to retain data for 7 years for compliance. Current queries are becoming slow due to the large table size. The compliance requirement mandates that data older than 1 year must be retained but is rarely accessed. What strategy would reduce the active table size while maintaining compliance?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often think deleting old data and relying on backups is sufficient for compliance, not realizing that automated backups are for disaster recovery, not long-term retention of deleted records, and that partitioning with archival to S3 is the only option that both reduces active table size and meets the 7-year retention mandate.
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
✓
Partition the table by date and archive partitions older than 1 year to Amazon S3 using AWS DMS.
Partitioning the table by date allows you to efficiently archive older, rarely accessed data to Amazon S3 using AWS DMS, reducing the active table size while retaining data for 7 years as required. This approach maintains compliance by keeping the archived data accessible in S3, and it improves query performance on the active partition by reducing the volume of data scanned.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Create a read replica and run reports against it.
Why it's wrong here
Does not reduce primary table size.
- ✓
Partition the table by date and archive partitions older than 1 year to Amazon S3 using AWS DMS.
Why this is correct
Removes old data from active table, retains in S3 for compliance.
- ✗
Delete data older than 1 year and use automated backups for compliance.
Why it's wrong here
Deleting data violates compliance retention requirement.
- ✗
Vertically partition the table to separate frequently and infrequently accessed columns.
Why it's wrong here
Does not reduce row count, only column width.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
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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.