SOA-C02 Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation Practice Question
A SysOps administrator is troubleshooting an Amazon RDS for MySQL instance that is experiencing high CPU utilization. The administrator wants to identify the specific queries consuming the most CPU. What is the MOST efficient way to achieve this?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse Enhanced Monitoring (OS-level metrics) with Performance Insights (database-level query analysis), leading candidates to choose Enhanced Monitoring when it cannot identify specific queries.
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
✓
Enable Performance Insights for the RDS instance and view the top SQL queries.
Performance Insights provides a built-in database load visualization and a dashboard that directly shows the top SQL queries consuming the most resources, including CPU. This is the most efficient method because it requires no additional configuration beyond enabling the feature and immediately surfaces the specific queries causing high CPU utilization.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use CloudWatch metrics for RDS and create a dashboard for CPU utilization.
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch metrics for RDS provide aggregated, instance-level CPU utilization but offer no visibility into which specific SQL statements are consuming those CPU resources. A dashboard can display the overall trend or alert on thresholds, but it cannot attribute high CPU to a particular query, so it fails to isolate the root cause needed for this troubleshooting scenario.
- ✓
Enable Performance Insights for the RDS instance and view the top SQL queries.
Why this is correct
Performance Insights is the correct choice because it presents a visual database load graph broken down by wait states and, crucially, shows the top SQL queries ranked by their contribution to total load, including CPU time. You can drill down into any time window to identify exactly which query is driving high CPU, directly pinpointing the problematic statement for optimization.
- ✗
Enable Enhanced Monitoring for the RDS instance and view the CPU metrics.
Why it's wrong here
Enhanced Monitoring provides OS-level metrics such as vCPU, memory, and process-level CPU usage for the RDS instance's host, but it does not map that CPU consumption to individual database queries or sessions. It may show that the instance is CPU-heavy or that a particular process like MySQL is using CPU, but it cannot reveal which SQL statement is responsible, leaving the diagnostic incomplete.
- ✗
Enable CloudWatch Logs for the RDS instance and filter for slow query logs.
Why it's wrong here
Slow query logs only capture queries whose execution time exceeds the long_query_time threshold, which measures duration—not CPU consumption. A CPU-intensive query can execute quickly and never appear in slow query logs, while a slow query might be caused by lock waits or I/O rather than CPU, so filtering these logs could either miss the problematic query or produce misleading results.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SOA-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 SOA-C02 exam.