DOP-C02 Monitoring and Logging Practice Question
A company is running a critical application on Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL. The DevOps team needs to set up monitoring to detect when database connections exceed 80% of the maximum connections for more than 5 minutes. Which CloudWatch metric should be used to create an alarm?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming CPUUtilization or FreeableMemory reflects connection saturation; candidates must recognize DatabaseConnections as the direct metric for connection limits.
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
✓
DatabaseConnections
Amazon RDS publishes the DatabaseConnections metric to CloudWatch, representing the number of client connections currently open to the DB instance. To alarm at 80% of max connections, you compare DatabaseConnections against the instance's max_connections parameter. This is the only listed metric that directly measures connection count.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
DatabaseConnections
Why this is correct
DatabaseConnections reports the count of client sessions currently connected to the RDS PostgreSQL instance, so an alarm threshold set at 80% of max_connections with a five-minute evaluation period detects sustained connection saturation, exactly the condition the DevOps team must monitor.
- ✗
FreeableMemory
Why it's wrong here
FreeableMemory reports available RAM, not connection counts, so it cannot trigger an 80%-of-max-connections alarm. It is tempting because memory pressure often accompanies connection storms, and it would be the right metric for detecting memory exhaustion or swapping on the DB instance.
- ✗
CPUUtilization
Why it's wrong here
CPUUtilization measures processor load, which does not track DatabaseConnections against max_connections, so the 80% threshold cannot be evaluated. It is tempting because heavy connection counts often raise CPU, and CPUUtilization would be correct for alarming on sustained compute saturation.
- ✗
DiskQueueDepth
Why it's wrong here
DiskQueueDepth counts outstanding I/O requests on the storage volume, unrelated to connection counts, so it cannot detect 80% of max_connections. It is tempting because connection surges can increase disk load, and DiskQueueDepth would be the right metric for diagnosing storage latency or I/O bottlenecks.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This DOP-C02 question is part of Courseiva's 1,298-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
This DOP-C02 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 DOP-C02 exam.