This DOP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of monitoring and logging. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 DevOps engineer is troubleshooting a slow-running Lambda function. The function processes messages from an SQS queue. Which CloudWatch metric should be examined first to determine if the function is experiencing throttling?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "first"
Why it matters: Order matters here. You are being tested on which action comes before the others — not which action is generally useful.
Invocations
Why wrong: Invocations shows total number of invocations, not throttling events.
ConcurrentExecutions
Why wrong: ConcurrentExecutions shows how many instances are running concurrently, but does not directly indicate throttling.
Duration
Why wrong: Duration shows how long the function takes, not throttling.
Throttles
Throttles metric counts the number of times invocation requests are throttled.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Throttles
The Throttles metric directly indicates when Lambda is rejecting invocation requests due to concurrency limits being reached. Since the question asks specifically about throttling, this is the first metric to examine to confirm whether the function is being rate-limited by AWS.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Invocations
Why it's wrong here
Invocations shows total number of invocations, not throttling events.
ConcurrentExecutions
Why it's wrong here
ConcurrentExecutions shows how many instances are running concurrently, but does not directly indicate throttling.
Duration
Why it's wrong here
Duration shows how long the function takes, not throttling.
Throttles
Why this is correct
Throttles metric counts the number of times invocation requests are throttled.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "first" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates may confuse high ConcurrentExecutions with throttling, but throttling is a separate metric that directly counts rejected invocations, not the number of concurrent runs.
Trap categories for this question
Command / output trap
Invocations shows total number of invocations, not throttling events.
Detailed technical explanation
Lambda throttles occur when the function's reserved concurrency or the account-level concurrency limit is exceeded. The Throttles metric increments for each invocation that is rejected with a 429 error, and it is available per function and per version/alias. In a real-world scenario, if an SQS queue triggers Lambda and the function is throttled, messages remain in the queue and may cause processing delays, making Throttles the first metric to check before investigating downstream dependencies.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.
What to study next
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
Monitoring and Logging — This question tests Monitoring and Logging — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Throttles — The Throttles metric directly indicates when Lambda is rejecting invocation requests due to concurrency limits being reached. Since the question asks specifically about throttling, this is the first metric to examine to confirm whether the function is being rate-limited by AWS.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Yes — watch for: "first". Order matters here. You are being tested on which action comes before the others — not which action is generally useful.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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.
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