DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question
Which TWO of the following are recommended best practices for designing a relational database on Amazon RDS? (Select TWO.)
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse Multi-AZ (which provides high availability) with read replicas (which provide read scaling), or mistakenly believe that storing BLOBs in the database is acceptable for performance, ignoring the impact on backup and replication overhead.
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
✓
Use read replicas to scale read-heavy workloads
Amazon RDS read replicas offload read traffic from the primary DB instance, improving performance for read-heavy workloads by providing additional read-only endpoints. This is a core best practice for scaling read capacity without increasing load on the source instance.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Use read replicas to scale read-heavy workloads
Why this is correct
Read replicas offload read traffic.
- ✗
Use LOB data types to store large text fields
Why it's wrong here
Can cause performance issues; consider separate storage.
- ✗
Use non-EBS-optimized instances to reduce costs
Why it's wrong here
EBS-optimized instances provide dedicated bandwidth.
- ✓
Enable Multi-AZ for high availability
Why this is correct
Multi-AZ provides automatic failover.
- ✗
Store large binary objects (BLOBs) in the database
Why it's wrong here
Store in S3 and reference by URL.
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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.