DBS-C01 Monitoring and Troubleshooting Practice Question
Network Topology
Refer to the exhibit. A database specialist is investigating performance degradation on an Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance. The BurstBalance metric shows the values above. What does this indicate, and what action should be taken?
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 instance has exhausted its I/O burst credits; scale up the allocated storage to increase baseline I/O.
The BurstBalance metric dropping to 0 indicates that the instance has exhausted its I/O burst credits, resulting in I/O throttling. Scaling up the allocated storage increases the baseline I/O performance, which in turn increases the burst credit earning rate and raises the burst balance. Option B is incorrect because adding a read replica offloads read traffic but does not increase I/O credits. Option C is incorrect because changing the instance class does not affect I/O credits; it only increases compute capacity. Option D is incorrect because enabling Performance Insights helps with diagnosis but does not resolve I/O credit exhaustion.
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 instance has exhausted its I/O burst credits; scale up the allocated storage to increase baseline I/O.
Why this is correct
Larger storage volumes have higher baseline I/O and accumulate burst credits faster.
- ✗
The instance is experiencing high read load; add a read replica to offload reads.
Why it's wrong here
Read replicas do not affect BurstBalance of the primary.
- ✗
The instance's compute capacity is insufficient; change the instance class to a larger size.
Why it's wrong here
Instance class does not affect I/O credits; it affects CPU and memory.
- ✗
The instance is experiencing a memory bottleneck; enable Performance Insights to analyze query performance.
Why it's wrong here
BurstBalance is an I/O metric, not memory.
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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.