PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
An SAP workload on AWS uses a Multi-AZ RDS for Oracle instance for its database. The application team reports that a recent batch job caused a spike in database connections and CPU utilization, leading to performance degradation. The database administrator wants to be notified when CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 minutes. Which combination of AWS services should be used to set up this monitoring and notification?
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
✓
Amazon CloudWatch with an Amazon CloudWatch Alarm and Amazon SNS
Amazon CloudWatch can monitor the CPU utilization metric of the RDS instance. A CloudWatch alarm can be configured to trigger when CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive periods (each period is 1 minute by default), and the alarm can publish to an Amazon SNS topic to send notifications. Option A is incorrect because Amazon EventBridge with AWS Lambda would require custom code and is not the simplest monitoring solution for this use case. Option B is incorrect because AWS Trusted Advisor provides best practice checks and recommendations, not real-time metric monitoring and alerting. Option D is incorrect because Amazon Inspector is a security assessment service that scans for vulnerabilities, not a monitoring and notification service for metrics.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon EventBridge with AWS Lambda
Why it's wrong here
Amazon EventBridge with AWS Lambda is not the simplest monitoring solution for this use case, as it would require custom code.
- ✗
AWS Trusted Advisor with Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
Why it's wrong here
AWS Trusted Advisor provides best practice checks and recommendations, not real-time metric monitoring and alerting.
- ✓
Amazon CloudWatch with an Amazon CloudWatch Alarm and Amazon SNS
Why this is correct
Amazon CloudWatch can monitor the CPU utilization metric of the RDS instance. A CloudWatch alarm can be configured to trigger when CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive periods (each period is 1 minute by default), and the alarm can publish to an Amazon SNS topic to send notifications.
- ✗
Amazon Inspector with Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
Why it's wrong here
Amazon Inspector is a security assessment service that scans for vulnerabilities, not a monitoring and notification service for metrics.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PAS-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 PAS-C01 exam.