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Workload-Specific Database Design →mediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question

This DBS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of workload-specific database design. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.

A gaming company uses Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL to store player profiles and game state data. The database is currently 500 GB and grows by 10 GB per day. The company runs weekly reports that scan the entire database, causing high I/O and CPU usage. The application experiences read latency spikes during report generation. The team wants to minimize performance impact on the application while maintaining the ability to run reports. Which solution should the team implement?

Clue words in this question

Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.

Clue: "minimum / minimize"
Why it matters: Asks for the least resource use — fewest addresses, smallest subnet, lowest overhead. Eliminate over-provisioned options even if they would technically work.

A
Create a read replica and direct all report queries to the read replica.
A read replica offloads read-intensive workloads from the primary, reducing latency for the application.
B
Enable Multi-AZ deployment to provide a standby instance for failover and use it for reporting.
Why wrong: Multi-AZ standby cannot be used for read queries; it is only for failover.
C
Scale up the RDS instance to a larger instance type to handle the additional load from reports.
Why wrong: Scaling up increases capacity but does not isolate reporting workload; the application may still experience latency.
D
Archive historical game state data to Amazon S3 and delete it from the database to reduce size.
Why wrong: Archiving reduces future growth but does not help with current report performance.

Full breakdown with real-world context →

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

✓

Create a read replica and direct all report queries to the read replica.

Creating a read replica for Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL allows the team to offload all report queries to a separate read-only endpoint, eliminating the I/O and CPU contention on the primary database. This directly addresses the read latency spikes during report generation without requiring any application changes beyond redirecting the reporting queries. The read replica asynchronously replicates data from the primary instance, ensuring the reports see a near-real-time snapshot of the data while the primary remains dedicated to the application workload.

Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.

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 direct all report queries to the read replica.
Why this is correct
A read replica offloads read-intensive workloads from the primary, reducing latency for the application.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "minimum / minimize" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Enable Multi-AZ deployment to provide a standby instance for failover and use it for reporting.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ standby cannot be used for read queries; it is only for failover.
✗
Scale up the RDS instance to a larger instance type to handle the additional load from reports.
Why it's wrong here
Scaling up increases capacity but does not isolate reporting workload; the application may still experience latency.
✗
Archive historical game state data to Amazon S3 and delete it from the database to reduce size.
Why it's wrong here
Archiving reduces future growth but does not help with current report performance.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates often confuse Multi-AZ standby instances with read replicas, mistakenly believing the standby can be used for read traffic, but AWS explicitly prevents read access to the standby to maintain synchronous replication integrity.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Amazon RDS read replicas use PostgreSQL's native streaming replication to maintain an asynchronous copy of the database, with a typical replication lag of less than a second under normal load. The read replica can be promoted to a standalone instance if needed, and it supports features like read-only workload isolation and cross-Region replication. In practice, for a 500 GB database growing 10 GB/day, the read replica can handle the weekly full-table scans without impacting the primary, as the replica's storage and compute are independent.

KKey Concepts to Remember

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.

TExam Day Tips

Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.

Key takeaway

Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.

Real-world example

How this comes up in practice

A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.

What to study next

Got this wrong? Here's your next step.

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

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FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this DBS-C01 question test?

Workload-Specific Database Design — This question tests Workload-Specific Database Design — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Create a read replica and direct all report queries to the read replica. — Creating a read replica for Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL allows the team to offload all report queries to a separate read-only endpoint, eliminating the I/O and CPU contention on the primary database. This directly addresses the read latency spikes during report generation without requiring any application changes beyond redirecting the reporting queries. The read replica asynchronously replicates data from the primary instance, ensuring the reports see a near-real-time snapshot of the data while the primary remains dedicated to the application workload.

What should I do if I get this DBS-C01 question wrong?

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

Are there clue words in this question I should notice?

Yes — watch for: "minimum / minimize". Asks for the least resource use — fewest addresses, smallest subnet, lowest overhead. Eliminate over-provisioned options even if they would technically work.

What is the key concept behind this question?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

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