The answer is Amazon CloudWatch. This is correct because CloudWatch can monitor the RDS DatabaseConnections metric and trigger an alarm when the value exceeds a threshold of 500 for a specified duration, such as five consecutive evaluation periods, which aligns with the requirement to alert after more than five minutes. On the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate SOA-C02 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of CloudWatch’s role in operational health monitoring, often appearing as a straightforward metric-alarm question where the trap is confusing CloudWatch with AWS Config or Trusted Advisor—neither of which handle real-time metric thresholds. A key memory tip is to think of CloudWatch as the “watchdog” for any numeric metric, while RDS itself only exposes the data; CloudWatch evaluates and alerts.
SOA-C02 Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation Practice Question
This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of monitoring, logging, and remediation. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 SysOps administrator needs to monitor the health of an Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance. The administrator wants to receive an alert when the database connection count exceeds a threshold of 500 for more than 5 minutes. Which AWS service should be used to create this alert?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Amazon CloudWatch
Amazon CloudWatch is the correct service because it can monitor RDS metrics such as DatabaseConnections and trigger an alarm when the value exceeds a threshold of 500 for a specified duration (e.g., 5 consecutive evaluation periods). CloudWatch alarms evaluate metric data against a defined threshold and can then publish to an SNS topic to send notifications.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
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 CloudWatch
Why this is correct
CloudWatch can create an alarm on the RDS metric 'DatabaseConnections' and notify when it exceeds 500 for 5 minutes.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
Why it's wrong here
SNS is a notification service; it cannot evaluate metrics or create alarms. It can be used as a target for CloudWatch alarms.
✗
AWS CloudTrail
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail records API calls, not database connection metrics. It is not suitable for metric monitoring.
✗
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config evaluates resource configuration compliance, not performance metrics like database connections.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse the service that evaluates metrics (CloudWatch) with the service that delivers notifications (SNS), leading them to select SNS because they think of alerts as notifications, but CloudWatch is the service that creates and evaluates the alarm based on the metric threshold.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
CloudWatch monitors RDS DatabaseConnections as a standard metric published every minute. To alert when the threshold is exceeded for more than 5 minutes, you configure the alarm with a period of 1 minute and an evaluation period of 5 consecutive datapoints (e.g., treat missing data as not breaching). The alarm state transitions from OK to ALARM only after the metric exceeds 500 for all 5 minutes, preventing false positives from brief spikes.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
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
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation — This question tests Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Amazon CloudWatch — Amazon CloudWatch is the correct service because it can monitor RDS metrics such as DatabaseConnections and trigger an alarm when the value exceeds a threshold of 500 for a specified duration (e.g., 5 consecutive evaluation periods). CloudWatch alarms evaluate metric data against a defined threshold and can then publish to an SNS topic to send notifications.
What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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