Question 1

A company is running a two-tier ecommerce application in one AWS account. The application is backed by an Amazon RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ DB instance. A developer mistakenly deleted the DB instance in the production environment. The company restores the database, but this event results in hours of downtime and lost revenue. Which combination of changes would minimize the risk of this mistake occurring in the future? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

A)  Grant least privilege to groups, IAM users, and roles. 
B)  Allow all users to restore a database from a backup. 
C)  Enable deletion protection on existing production DB instances. 
D)  Use an ACL policy to restrict users from DB instance deletion. 
E)  Enable AWS CloudTrail logging and Enhanced Monitoring.

Question 2

A Database Specialist is migrating an on-premises Microsoft SQL Server application database to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL using AWS DMS. The application requires minimal downtime when the RDS DB instance goes live. What change should the Database Specialist make to enable the migration?

Accepted Answer

A)  Configure the on-premises application database to act as a source for an AWS DMS full load with ongoing change data capture (CD
C)  
B)  Configure the AWS DMS replication instance to allow both full load and ongoing change data capture (CD
C)  
C)  Configure the AWS DMS task to generate full logs to allow for ongoing change data capture (CD
C)  
D)  Configure the AWS DMS connections to allow two-way communication to allow for ongoing change data capture (CD
C)

Question 3

A company is building a new web platform where user requests trigger an AWS Lambda function that performs an insert into an Amazon Aurora MySQL DB cluster. Initial tests with less than 10 users on the new platform yielded successful execution and fast response times. However, upon more extensive tests with the actual target of 3,000 concurrent users, Lambda functions are unable to connect to the DB cluster and receive too many connections errors. Which of the following will resolve this issue?

Accepted Answer

A)  Edit the my.cnf file for the DB cluster to increase max_connections 
B)  Increase the instance size of the DB cluster 
C)  Change the DB cluster to Multi-AZ 
D)  Increase the number of Aurora Replicas

Question 4

A financial services company uses Amazon RDS for Oracle with Transparent Data Encryption (TDE). The company is required to encrypt its data at rest at all times. The key required to decrypt the data has to be highly available, and access to the key must be limited. As a regulatory requirement, the company must have the ability to rotate the encryption key on demand. The company must be able to make the key unusable if any potential security breaches are spotted. The company also needs to accomplish these tasks with minimum overhead. What should the database administrator use to set up the encryption to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

A)  AWS CloudHSM 
B)  AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) with an AWS managed key 
C)  AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) with server-side encryption 
D)  AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) CMK with customer-provided material

Question 5

A gaming company is developing a new mobile game and decides to store the data for each user in Amazon DynamoDB. To make the registration process as easy as possible, users can log in with their existing Facebook or Amazon accounts. The company expects more than 10,000 users. How should a database specialist implement access control with the LEAST operational effort?

Accepted Answer

A)  Use web identity federation on the mobile app and AWS STS with an attached IAM role to get temporary credentials to access DynamoDB. 
B)  Use web identity federation on the mobile app and create individual IAM users with credentials to access DynamoDB. 
C)  Use a self-developed user management system on the mobile app that lets users access the data from DynamoDB through an API. 
D)  Use a single IAM user on the mobile app to access DynamoDB.

Question 6

The Development team recently executed a database script containing several data definition language (DDL) and data manipulation language (DML) statements on an Amazon Aurora MySQL DB cluster. The release accidentally deleted thousands of rows from an important table and broke some application functionality. This was discovered 4 hours after the release. Upon investigation, a Database Specialist tracked the issue to a DELETE command in the script with an incorrect WHERE clause filtering the wrong set of rows. The Aurora DB cluster has Backtrack enabled with an 8-hour backtrack window. The Database Administrator also took a manual snapshot of the DB cluster before the release started. The database needs to be returned to the correct state as quickly as possible to resume full application functionality. Data loss must be minimal. How can the Database Specialist accomplish this?

Accepted Answer

A)  Quickly rewind the DB cluster to a point in time before the release using Backtrack. 
B)  Perform a point-in-time recovery (PITR) of the DB cluster to a time before the release and copy the deleted rows from the restored database to the original database. 
C)  Restore the DB cluster using the manual backup snapshot created before the release and change the application configuration settings to point to the new DB cluster. 
D)  Create a clone of the DB cluster with Backtrack enabled. Rewind the cloned cluster to a point in time before the release. Copy deleted rows from the clone to the original database.

Question 7

A company has multiple applications serving data from a secure on-premises database. The company is migrating all applications and databases to the AWS Cloud. The IT Risk and Compliance department requires that auditing be enabled on all secure databases to capture all log ins, log outs, failed logins, permission changes, and database schema changes. A Database Specialist has recommended Amazon Aurora MySQL as the migration target, and leveraging the Advanced Auditing feature in Aurora. Which events need to be specified in the Advanced Auditing configuration to satisfy the minimum auditing requirements? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

A)  CONNECT 
B)  QUERY_DCL 
C)  QUERY_DDL 
D)  QUERY_DML 
E)  TABLE
F) QUERY

Question 8

A company has an application that uses an Amazon DynamoDB table to store user data. Every morning, a single-threaded process calls the DynamoDB API Scan operation to scan the entire table and generate a critical start-of-day report for management. A successful marketing campaign recently doubled the number of items in the table, and now the process takes too long to run and the report is not generated in time. A database specialist needs to improve the performance of the process. The database specialist notes that, when the process is running, 15% of the table's provisioned read capacity units (RCUs) are being used. What should the database specialist do?

Accepted Answer

A)  Enable auto scaling for the DynamoDB table. 
B)  Use four threads and parallel DynamoDB API Scan operations. 
C)  Double the table's provisioned RCUs. 
D)  Set the Limit and Offset parameters before every call to the API.

Question 9

A finance company needs to make sure that its MySQL database backups are available for the most recent 90 days. All of the MySQL databases are hosted on Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instances. A database specialist must implement a solution that meets the backup retention requirement with the least possible development effort. Which approach should the database specialist take?

Accepted Answer

A)  Use AWS Backup to build a backup plan for the required retention period. Assign the DB instances to the backup plan. 
B)  Modify the DB instances to enable the automated backup option. Select the required backup retention period. 
C)  Automate a daily cron job on an Amazon EC2 instance to create MySQL dumps, transfer to Amazon S3, and implement an S3 Lifecycle policy to meet the retention requirement. 
D)  Use AWS Lambda to schedule a daily manual snapshot of the DB instances. Delete snapshots that exceed the retention requirement.

Question 10

A retail company manages a web application that stores data in an Amazon DynamoDB table. The company is undergoing account consolidation efforts. A database engineer needs to migrate the DynamoDB table from the current AWS account to a new AWS account. Which strategy meets these requirements with the LEAST amount of administrative work?

Accepted Answer

A)  Use AWS Glue to crawl the data in the DynamoDB table. Create a job using an available blueprint to export the data to Amazon S3. Import the data from the S3 file to a DynamoDB table in the new account. 
B)  Create an AWS Lambda function to scan the items of the DynamoDB table in the current account and write to a file in Amazon S3. Create another Lambda function to read the S3 file and restore the items of a DynamoDB table in the new account. 
C)  Use AWS Data Pipeline in the current account to export the data from the DynamoDB table to a file in Amazon S3. Use Data Pipeline to import the data from the S3 file to a DynamoDB table in the new account. 
D)  Configure Amazon DynamoDB Streams for the DynamoDB table in the current account. Create an AWS Lambda function to read from the stream and write to a file in Amazon S3. Create another Lambda function to read the S3 file and restore the items to a DynamoDB table in the new account.

Question 11

A company is using Amazon RDS for MySQL to redesign its business application. A Database Specialist has noticed that the Development team is restoring their MySQL database multiple times a day when Developers make mistakes in their schema updates. The Developers sometimes need to wait hours to the restores to complete. Multiple team members are working on the project, making it difficult to find the correct restore point for each mistake. Which approach should the Database Specialist take to reduce downtime?

Accepted Answer

A)  Deploy multiple read replicas and have the team members make changes to separate replica instances 
B)  Migrate to Amazon RDS for SQL Server, take a snapshot, and restore from the snapshot 
C)  Migrate to Amazon Aurora MySQL and enable the Aurora Backtrack feature 
D)  Enable the Amazon RDS for MySQL Backtrack feature

Question 12

A small startup company is looking to migrate a 4 TB on-premises MySQL database to AWS using an Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance. Which strategy would allow for a successful migration with the LEAST amount of downtime?

Accepted Answer

A)  Deploy a new RDS for MySQL DB instance and configure it for access from the on-premises data center. Use the mysqldump utility to create an initial snapshot from the on-premises MySQL server, and copy it to an Amazon S3 bucket. Import the snapshot into the DB instance utilizing the MySQL utilities running on an Amazon EC2 instance. Immediately point the application to the DB instance. 
B)  Deploy a new Amazon EC2 instance, install the MySQL software on the EC2 instance, and configure networking for access from the on-premises data center. Use the mysqldump utility to create a snapshot of the on-premises MySQL server. Copy the snapshot into the EC2 instance and restore it into the EC2 MySQL instance. Use AWS DMS to migrate data into a new RDS for MySQL DB instance. Point the application to the DB instance. 
C)  Deploy a new Amazon EC2 instance, install the MySQL software on the EC2 instance, and configure networking for access from the on-premises data center. Use the mysqldump utility to create a snapshot of the on-premises MySQL server. Copy the snapshot into an Amazon S3 bucket and import the snapshot into a new RDS for MySQL DB instance using the MySQL utilities running on an EC2 instance. Point the application to the DB instance. 
D)  Deploy a new RDS for MySQL DB instance and configure it for access from the on-premises data center. Use the mysqldump utility to create an initial snapshot from the on-premises MySQL server, and copy it to an Amazon S3 bucket. Import the snapshot into the DB instance using the MySQL utilities running on an Amazon EC2 instance. Establish replication into the new DB instance using MySQL replication. Stop application access to the on-premises MySQL server and let the remaining transactions replicate over. Point the application to the DB instance.

Question 13

A Database Specialist is planning to create a read replica of an existing Amazon RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ DB instance. When using the AWS Management Console to conduct this task, the Database Specialist discovers that the source RDS DB instance does not appear in the read replica source selection box, so the read replica cannot be created. What is the most likely reason for this?

Accepted Answer

A)  The source DB instance has to be converted to Single-AZ first to create a read replica from it. 
B)  Enhanced Monitoring is not enabled on the source DB instance. 
C)  The minor MySQL version in the source DB instance does not support read replicas. 
D)  Automated backups are not enabled on the source DB instance.

Question 14

A company has a database monitoring solution that uses Amazon CloudWatch for its Amazon RDS for SQL Server environment. The cause of a recent spike in CPU utilization was not determined using the standard metrics that were collected. The CPU spike caused the application to perform poorly, impacting users. A Database Specialist needs to determine what caused the CPU spike. Which combination of steps should be taken to provide more visibility into the processes and queries running during an increase in CPU load? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

A)  Enable Amazon CloudWatch Events and view the incoming T-SQL statements causing the CPU to spike. 
B)  Enable Enhanced Monitoring metrics to view CPU utilization at the RDS SQL Server DB instance level. 
C)  Implement a caching layer to help with repeated queries on the RDS SQL Server DB instance. 
D)  Use Amazon QuickSight to view the SQL statement being run. 
E)  Enable Amazon RDS Performance Insights to view the database load and filter the load by waits, SQL statements, hosts, or users.

Question 15

The Security team for a finance company was notified of an internal security breach that happened 3 weeks ago. A Database Specialist must start producing audit logs out of the production Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL cluster for the Security team to use for monitoring and alerting. The Security team is required to perform real-time alerting and monitoring outside the Aurora DB cluster and wants to have the cluster push encrypted files to the chosen solution. Which approach will meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

A)  Use pg_audit to generate audit logs and send the logs to the Security team. 
B)  Use AWS CloudTrail to audit the DB cluster and the Security team will get data from Amazon S3. 
C)  Set up database activity streams and connect the data stream from Amazon Kinesis to consumer applications. 
D)  Turn on verbose logging and set up a schedule for the logs to be dumped out for the Security team.

Question 16

A company has an AWS CloudFormation template written in JSON that is used to launch new Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instances. The security team has asked a database specialist to ensure that the master password is automatically rotated every 30 days for all new DB instances that are launched using the template. What is the MOST operationally efficient solution to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

A)  Save the password in an Amazon S3 object. Encrypt the S3 object with an AWS KMS key. Set the KMS key to be rotated every 30 days by setting the EnableKeyRotation property to true. Use a CloudFormation custom resource to read the S3 object to extract the password. 
B)  Create an AWS Lambda function to rotate the secret. Modify the CloudFormation template to add an AWS::SecretsManager::RotationSchedule resource. Configure the RotationLambdaARN value and, for the RotationRules property, set the AutomaticallyAfterDays parameter to 30. 
C)  Modify the CloudFormation template to use the AWS KMS key as the database password. Configure an Amazon EventBridge rule to invoke the KMS API to rotate the key every 30 days by setting the ScheduleExpression parameter to ***/30***. 
D)  Integrate the Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instances with AWS IAM and centrally manage the master database user password.

Question 17

A database specialist is managing an application in the us-west-1 Region and wants to set up disaster recovery in the us-east-1 Region. The Amazon Aurora MySQL DB cluster needs an RPO of 1 minute and an RTO of 2 minutes. Which approach meets these requirements with no negative performance impact?

Accepted Answer

A)  Enable synchronous replication. 
B)  Enable asynchronous binlog replication. 
C)  Create an Aurora Global Database. 
D)  Copy Aurora incremental snapshots to the us-east-1 Region.

Question 18

An ecommerce company recently migrated one of its SQL Server databases to an Amazon RDS for SQL Server Enterprise Edition DB instance. The company expects a spike in read traffic due to an upcoming sale. A database specialist must create a read replica of the DB instance to serve the anticipated read traffic. Which actions should the database specialist take before creating the read replica? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

A)  Identify a potential downtime window and stop the application calls to the source DB instance. 
B)  Ensure that automatic backups are enabled for the source DB instance. 
C)  Ensure that the source DB instance is a Multi-AZ deployment with Always ON Availability Groups. 
D)  Ensure that the source DB instance is a Multi-AZ deployment with SQL Server Database Mirroring (DBM). 
E)  Modify the read replica parameter group setting and set the value to 1.

Question 19

A large company has a variety of Amazon DB clusters. Each of these clusters has various configurations that adhere to various requirements. Depending on the team and use case, these configurations can be organized into broader categories. A database administrator wants to make the process of storing and modifying these parameters more systematic. The database administrator also wants to ensure that changes to individual categories of configurations are automatically applied to all instances when required. Which AWS service or feature will help automate and achieve this objective?

Accepted Answer

A)  AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store 
B)  DB parameter group 
C)  AWS Config 
D)  AWS Secrets Manager

Question 20

A team of Database Specialists is currently investigating performance issues on an Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance and is reviewing related metrics. The team wants to narrow the possibilities down to specific database wait events to better understand the situation. How can the Database Specialists accomplish this?

Accepted Answer

A)  Enable the option to push all database logs to Amazon CloudWatch for advanced analysis 
B)  Create appropriate Amazon CloudWatch dashboards to contain specific periods of time 
C)  Enable Amazon RDS Performance Insights and review the appropriate dashboard 
D)  Enable Enhanced Monitoring will the appropriate settings

Exam 5: AWS Certified Database - Specialty

A Database Specialist is migrating an on-premises Microsoft SQL Server application database to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL using AWS DMS. The application requires minimal downtime when the RDS DB instance goes live. What change should the Database Specialist make to enable the migration?

A small startup company is looking to migrate a 4 TB on-premises MySQL database to AWS using an Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance. Which strategy would allow for a successful migration with the LEAST amount of downtime?

A database specialist is managing an application in the us-west-1 Region and wants to set up disaster recovery in the us-east-1 Region. The Amazon Aurora MySQL DB cluster needs an RPO of 1 minute and an RTO of 2 minutes. Which approach meets these requirements with no negative performance impact?