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DP-203 Practice Question: Monitoring an Azure Cosmos DB account using Azure…
You are monitoring an Azure Cosmos DB account using Azure Monitor. The 'Normalized RU Consumption' metric for a container is consistently above 90%. You need to ensure that the container can handle the load without throttling. What should you do?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse optimizing RU consumption (e.g., indexing or partition key changes) with the need to increase capacity when the metric already shows the system is at its limit, leading them to choose options that reduce per-request cost rather than addressing the throughput ceiling.
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
✓
Increase the provisioned throughput (RU/s) for the container.
The 'Normalized RU Consumption' metric indicates the percentage of provisioned throughput (RU/s) being used. Consistently above 90% means the container is operating near its capacity limit, risking throttling (HTTP 429 errors) during traffic spikes. Increasing the provisioned throughput (RU/s) directly raises the capacity, allowing the container to handle the load without throttling.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Change the partition key to a different property.
Why it's wrong here
Repartitioning redistributes RU charges across logical partitions but does not raise the container's provisioned throughput ceiling; at 90% normalised consumption the fix is to increase RUs. Changing the partition key suits hotspots where one logical partition dominates, not uniform saturation.
- ✓
Increase the provisioned throughput (RU/s) for the container.
Why this is correct
Normalized RU Consumption above 90% indicates the container is approaching its provisioned RU/s ceiling, so requests risk rate-limiting (429s). Raising the provisioned throughput directly increases the available RU/s budget, lowering normalised consumption and preventing throttling under the current load.
- ✗
Switch the account to serverless mode.
Why it's wrong here
Serverless removes provisioned throughput entirely and caps containers at 5,000 RU/s, so sustained high consumption still throttles. Provisioned throughput with autoscale, or a higher manual RU/s setting, is the mechanism that raises the ceiling for a busy container.
- ✗
Modify the indexing policy to exclude unused paths.
Why it's wrong here
Excluding unused indexed paths lowers the RU cost per write, but normalised consumption above 90% reflects sustained demand against the provisioned ceiling, so the container still throttles. Index tuning suits reducing charge per operation, not raising available throughput.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DP-203 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft 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 DP-203 exam.