SOA-C02 Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation Practice Question
This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of monitoring, logging, and remediation. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. 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 notices that an Amazon RDS instance's CPU utilization is consistently above 90% during peak hours. The administrator needs to investigate which queries are consuming the most CPU. Which action should the administrator take?
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 review the top SQL queries.
Performance Insights is the correct tool because it provides a database-specific performance schema that visualizes database load and identifies the top SQL queries consuming resources. By enabling Performance Insights on the RDS instance, the administrator can directly view which queries are responsible for the high CPU utilization during peak hours, allowing targeted optimization.
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.
✓
Enable Performance Insights for the RDS instance and review the top SQL queries.
Why this is correct
Performance Insights shows the top queries by CPU usage, enabling targeted optimization.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use CloudWatch Logs Insights to query the database error log for slow queries.
Why it's wrong here
Slow query logs can help, but Performance Insights is more direct for CPU analysis.
✗
Enable detailed CloudWatch metrics for the RDS instance and analyze the CPUUtilization metric.
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch metrics do not show which queries are using CPU.
✗
Enable RDS Enhanced Monitoring and review the 'cpuCreditUsage' metric.
Why it's wrong here
Enhanced Monitoring provides OS metrics, not query-level details.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is confusing aggregate metrics (CloudWatch CPUUtilization) or OS-level metrics (Enhanced Monitoring) with database-specific query performance analysis, leading candidates to choose options that show overall CPU usage but not the root-cause queries.
Trap categories for this question
Command / output trap
CloudWatch metrics do not show which queries are using CPU.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Performance Insights uses the database engine's built-in performance schema (e.g., MySQL's performance_schema or PostgreSQL's pg_stat_statements) to collect wait events and SQL digest data, which is then aggregated into a 'DB Load' chart measured in average active sessions (AAS). This allows the administrator to drill down into specific queries, hosts, or users causing the highest load, even distinguishing between CPU wait and other wait types like I/O or locks.
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: Enable Performance Insights for the RDS instance and review the top SQL queries. — Performance Insights is the correct tool because it provides a database-specific performance schema that visualizes database load and identifies the top SQL queries consuming resources. By enabling Performance Insights on the RDS instance, the administrator can directly view which queries are responsible for the high CPU utilization during peak hours, allowing targeted optimization.
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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