SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company uses Amazon RDS for MySQL with Multi-AZ deployment. The database experiences high CPU utilization during peak hours. The company wants to reduce the load on the primary database instance without making changes to the application code. Which TWO solutions should the solutions architect recommend?
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
✓
Create one or more Read Replicas in the same region and direct read traffic to them.
Options B and E are correct. Read Replicas offload read traffic from the primary database instance, reducing CPU utilization. ElastiCache caches the results of frequently accessed queries, decreasing the number of database queries and CPU load. Option A is incorrect because increasing the instance size does not address the root cause and may require downtime. Option C is incorrect because RDS Proxy manages connection pooling, not reducing CPU load from queries. Option D is incorrect because the instance is already Multi-AZ, which provides failover but does not reduce read load.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the instance size of the primary RDS instance.
Why it's wrong here
Vertical scaling helps but is not the only solution; it may also require downtime and does not address read-heavy workloads optimally.
- ✓
Create one or more Read Replicas in the same region and direct read traffic to them.
Why this is correct
Read Replicas offload read queries from the primary, reducing its CPU load.
- ✗
Enable Amazon RDS Proxy to manage database connections.
Why it's wrong here
RDS Proxy helps with connection management but does not reduce query load.
- ✗
Convert the RDS instance to a Multi-AZ deployment if not already.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ provides high availability but does not reduce CPU load on the primary.
- ✓
Implement an Amazon ElastiCache cluster to cache the results of frequently accessed queries.
Why this is correct
Caching reduces the number of direct database queries, lowering CPU utilization.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every SAP-C02 question from scratch — 1,660 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SAP-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 SAP-C02 exam.