hardMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
MLA-C01 Practice Question: A company's SageMaker real-time endpoint is…
A company's SageMaker real-time endpoint is experiencing high latency under load. The CloudWatch metrics show that the ModelLatency is acceptable, but the OverheadLatency is spiking. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse OverheadLatency with network latency or client-side delays, and assume VPC misconfiguration (Option B) is the cause, when in fact OverheadLatency is a server-side metric that spikes due to insufficient instance count causing request queuing.
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 endpoint is under-provisioned with insufficient instance count.
OverheadLatency measures the time spent on infrastructure overhead (e.g., request routing, network I/O, and container startup) rather than model inference. When the endpoint is under-provisioned with too few instances, requests queue up, causing the SageMaker front-end to wait for a free worker, which directly inflates OverheadLatency while ModelLatency (pure inference time) remains unaffected.
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 request payload size is too large.
Why it's wrong here
Large payloads increase latency overall but are not specific to OverheadLatency.
- ✗
The SageMaker endpoint is not in the same VPC as the client.
Why it's wrong here
Network latency would affect the overall latency but not specifically OverheadLatency.
- ✓
The endpoint is under-provisioned with insufficient instance count.
Why this is correct
When the endpoint is under-provisioned, SageMaker overhead increases due to queuing and container startup, spiking OverheadLatency.
- ✗
The model inference code is inefficient.
Why it's wrong here
Inefficient inference code would increase ModelLatency, not OverheadLatency.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This MLA-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 MLA-C01 exam.