AWS Certified Database – Specialty DBS-C01 Exam Study Path

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AWS Certified Database – Specialty DBS-C01 Exam Study Path

Last updated on February 17, 2024

The global cloud adoption trend will continue to accelerate in the coming years and that will include the proliferation of deploying and managing purpose-built databases. Companies from all industries will look for talents that can manage the challenges of migrating their data and securing them in the cloud.

The AWS Certified Database – Specialty (DBS-C01) exam is the latest addition to the AWS Specialty Certifications. This exam validates your comprehensive understanding of AWS database services’ breadth, including the concepts of design, migration, deployment, access, maintenance, automation, monitoring, security, and troubleshooting.

This Specialty exam is recommended for people who have acquired extensive real-world experience in database administration and AWS cloud management. However, with commitment, determination, and ample preparation, an individual can aspire to succeed in passing this exam. AWS Support – Knowledge Center, Blogs, and Documentation will serve you well in studying for it. Check out the official AWS Certified Database – Specialty (DBS-C01) Exam Guide for more details on preparing for the exam.

Study Materials for AWS Certified Database Specialty DBS-C01

This Specialty exam is quite a challenging exam and thus, you have to adequately prepare for it. We recommend checking the materials below before taking the exam:

  1. AWS Exam Readiness: AWS Certified Database – Specialty DBS-C01 – a 3.5 hour-course available for FREE in AWS Training and Certification. It will give exam takers a better breakdown of the exam guide and helps you create a structure for preparing for the exam.

  2. AWS Documentation and FAQS – The AWS Documentation has everything. If you can consume them entirely, then you should be very confident about your theory. AWS FAQs have always been a reliable source for exam preparation. It is easy to read and gives you an idea of whether you missed a concept or area of knowledge.

  3. Tutorials Dojo’s AWS Cheat Sheets – an alternative to the lengthy FAQs is Tutorials Dojo’s collection of AWS cheat sheets that are presented in bullet points to help you easily digest the information. This page summarizes all the database-related cheat sheets that are published on the site.

  4. AWS Support – Knowledge Center – This is the gold mine, the Eureka moment, the Nirvana. Many questions from the exam will be based on how well you understand the body of thought surrounding the questions posted here. Particular focus on the Database section, Amazon Redshift, AWS CloudFormation, Amazon CloudWatch, and AWS CloudTrail.

  5. AWS Whitepapers – good source of information. Several useful whitepapers are located in the AWS Certification Exam Preparation page

  6. AWS Well-Architected Framework – digest this framework when going through the examination.

  7. Tutorials Dojo’s AWS Certified Database Specialty Practice Exams – simulate the actual exam environment with scenario questions that are patterned after the real test.

Core AWS Services to Focus On For the DBS-C01 Exam

1. Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) – Special mention on Amazon Aurora

  • Architecture
  • High Availability (Multi-AZ and Replicas)
  • Database Engines (MySQL, MariaDB, Microsoft, Oracle, PostgreSQL)
  • Deployment & Connection Management
  • DB Cluster/Instance Management
  • Scaling (Storage, Compute, Read)
  • Network Management (VPC, Security Groups, DB Subnet Groups)
  • Aurora Serverless
  • Cloning
  • Aurora Backtrack
  • Aurora Multi-Master
  • Amazon Aurora Global Databases
  • Cross-Region Replication
  • Tutorials dojo strip
  • Backup and Restore (PITR, Copy, Share, Migrate, Automatic, Manual)
  • Database Activity Streams
  • Enhanced Monitoring
  • Performance Insights
  • Event Notifications
  • Amazon EventBridge
  • Data Protection
  • IAM Database Authentication
  • Audit
  • Integration with AWS Services (e.g. CloudWatch, CloudTrail, Lambda, KMS)
  • Migration strategies (e.g. Snowball Edge)
  • Best Practices

2. Amazon DynamoDB

  • Architecture
  • Deployment & Connection Management
  • Scaling (RCU, WCU)
  • DynamoDB Global Tables
  • Cross-Region Replication
  • On-demand Backup and Restore
  • DynamoDB Streams
  • DynamoDB Accelerator
  • Contributor Insights
  • Data Protection
  • Audit
  • Integration with AWS Services
  • Migration strategies
  • Best Practices

3. AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS)

  • Architecture
  • Deployment
  • Migration Assessments
  • Migration Task Settings
  • Integration with AWS Schema Conversion Tool

4. AWS CloudFormation

  • Templates
  • Integration with AWS Services (e.g. Secrets Manager, Systems Manager)

5. Amazon Redshift

  • Architecture
  • Deployment & Connection Management
  • Cluster Management
  • Scaling
  • Cross-Region Replication
  • Workload Management
  • Redshift Spectrum
  • Data Protection
  • Audit
  • Integration with AWS Services
  • Migration strategies
  • Best Practices

6. Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility)

  • Architecture
  • Deployment
  • Migration Best Practices
  • Monitoring
  • Security Best Practices

7. Amazon Neptune

  • Architecture
  • Deployment
  • Migration Best Practices
  • Monitoring
  • Security Best Practices

8. Amazon ElastiCache (Redis and Memcached)

  • Architecture
  • Deployment
  • Migration Best Practices
  • Monitoring
  • Security Best Practices

9. Amazon QLDB

  • Architecture
  • Deployment
  •  

Validate Your DBS-C01 Knowledge

The first resource you should check after you’ve reviewed the materials above is the FREE AWS sample questions for AWS Database Specialty. It has ten questions patterned similarly to the real exam, and AWS has provided the answers with great explanations for each item at the end of the file. Be sure to check the sample questionnaire often since AWS may upload a new version of it.

You can use Tutorials Dojo’s high-quality AWS Certified Database Specialty Practice Exams to get you prepared for a full-on exam simulation. Our practice exams contain multiple sets of questions covering almost every area you can expect from the real certification exam. We also include detailed explanations after each item to understand why one choice is better than the others, which is the value you get from our course. Practice exams are a great way to know which AWS topics you need to focus on, and they also highlight the critical information that you might have missed during your reviews.

AWS Exam Readiness Courses

 

Sample DBS-C01 Practice Test Questions:

Question 1

A Database Engineer plans to migrate a 20TB Oracle database instance in a Production environment running in the Northern California (us-west-1) region to an Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance located in the Northern Virginia (us-east-1) region using AWS DMS. The Oracle database will need to be configured to dynamically transform and manipulate data using transformation rule expressions to fit the new schema. However, the manager wants to make sure that the performance impact in the Oracle database is minimized.

How should the engineer set up the AWS DMS replication instance to achieve the MOST optimal performance and LEAST impact to the Oracle database?

  1. Launch the AWS DMS replication instance in the same AWS Region and VPC where the Amazon RDS for MySQL database instance is running.
  2. Launch the AWS DMS replication instance in the same AWS Account where the Amazon RDS for MySQL database instance is running.
  3. Launch the AWS DMS replication instance in the same AWS Region where the Oracle database instance is running.
  4. Launch the AWS DMS replication instance in the same AWS Region, VPC, and Availability Zone where the Oracle database instance is running.

Correct Answer: 4

When you create an AWS DMS replication instance, AWS DMS creates the replication instance on an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance in a VPC based on the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) service. You can use this replication instance to perform your database migration. The replication instance provides high availability and failover support using a Multi-AZ deployment when you select the Multi-AZ option.

AWS DMS uses a replication instance to connect to your source data store, read the source data, and format the data for consumption by the target data store. A replication instance also loads the data into the target datastore. Most of this processing happens in memory. However, large transactions might require some buffering on disk. Cached transactions and log files are also written to disk.

You can set up the DMS replication instance in the same VPC, Availability Zone, and AWS Region of either the source or target database. However, if you are only migrating or replicating a subset of data using filters or transformations, it is recommended that you launch the replication instance on the same VPC and Availability Zone where the source database is, to optimize the processing. Most of the time, the amount of data transferred over the network to the target database is less compared with the source database.

To define content for new and existing columns, you can use an expression within a transformation rule. For example, using expressions you can add a column or replicate source table headers to a target. You can also use expressions to flag records on target tables as inserted, updated, or deleted at the source.

In performance tuning, it is dangerous to claim a “One-Size-Fits-All” solution. Best practices should be treated as a solid starting point in assessing trade-offs. However, the key is in the details.

Recommending to put it in the target VPC – 3 usual reasons: 1) Avoid making changes to Production Environment unless it is absolutely necessary; 2) Placing the AWS DMS instance in the target VPC makes it less complex, from a network standpoint, to transfer the data to the new database instance, where a lot of other database migration tasks (e.g. sanity checks, DDLs, audit) need to be accomplished. Ideally, you want to keep all these components as close together as possible; and 3) It’s best practice. Like in this scenario, migration is not supposed to be a regular operation. It is normally a one-time procedure. You want to avoid putting any performance hit on the Production DB instance. Furthermore, the DMS will eventually have to be removed, and you do not want to make another Production change to stop and terminate it.

This is why this statement is very important: “The source database is configured to dynamically transform and manipulate data using transformation rule expressions.” It signifies that a complex amount of processing will take place between the source database and the AWS DMS instance. If the migration procedure will cause some performance hit to the Production environment, which probably will because of the transformation requirements, you want to accomplish your source database tasks as fast as possible. Network latency is expensive and the distance between California to Virginia should be considered. However, we still want to avoid hitting the Production environment as much as possible. Among the choices, placing it in the source VPC is as close as you can get without impacting the source DB instance, and makes the most sense. Furthermore, putting the DMS instance closer to the source database will minimize the amount of data transferred in between regions caused by transformations.

Hence, the correct answer is: Launch the AWS DMS replication instance in the same AWS Region, VPC, and Availability Zone where the Oracle database instance is running.

The option that says: Launch the AWS DMS replication instance in the same AWS Region and VPC where the Amazon RDS for MySQL database instance is running is incorrect because you should place the DMS replication instance in the same VPC and Availability Zone (AZ) of the source database. The replication instance connects to your source data store then reads and formats the source data before sending it to the target database. A large amount of traffic is exchanged between the source and the replication instance which is why they have to be in the same VPC and AZ for optimal performance.

The option that says: Launch the AWS DMS replication instance in the same AWS Account where the Amazon RDS for MySQL database instance is running is incorrect because running the replication instance in the same AWS account is not enough. The AWS DMS replication instance must be launched in the same AWS Region, VPC, and Availability Zone where the Oracle database instance (source database) is running for optimal network and migration performance.

The option that says: Launch the AWS DMS replication instance in the same AWS Region where the Oracle database instance is running is incorrect because the replication instance could be placed in a different VPC or Availability Zone where the database source is not running. This setup is not the most optimal configuration because the replication instance is not running on the exact same Availability Zone and VPC of the source database.

https://tutorialsdojo.com/aws-database-migration-service/

References:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/dms/latest/userguide/CHAP_ReplicationInstance.html
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/database/disaster-recovery-on-amazon-rds-for-oracle-using-aws-dms
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/dms/latest/userguide/CHAP_ReplicationInstance.VPC.html

Check out this AWS Database Migration Service Cheat Sheet:
https://tutorialsdojo.com/aws-database-migration-service/

Question 2

A company is developing a mobile game that uses an Amazon DynamoDB table with the default configuration. When the player’s score changes, the game must update the score and show the latest data on the real-time leaderboard using the GetItem API. It should fetch the most up-to-date data from all successful write operations and not return any stale data.

What additional action should the Database Specialist do to implement this feature properly?

  1. Set the ConsistentRead parameter to true when using the GetItem operation.
  2. No additional action needed since the GetItem API already provides a strongly consistent read by default.
  3. Enable the DynamoDB Streams feature to automatically run the GetItem operations with strong consistent read.
  4. Use DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) to ensure that the GetItem API fetches the most up-to-date data from all successful write operations.

Correct Answer: 1

Amazon DynamoDB is available in multiple AWS Regions around the world. Every AWS Region consists of multiple distinct locations called Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone is isolated from failures in other Availability Zones, and provides inexpensive, low-latency network connectivity to other Availability Zones in the same Region. This allows rapid replication of your data among multiple Availability Zones in a Region.

When your application writes data to a DynamoDB table and receives an HTTP 200 response (OK), the write has occurred and is durable. The data is eventually consistent across all storage locations, usually within one second or less.

DynamoDB supports 2 read types:

Eventually Consistent Reads – When you read data from a DynamoDB table, the response might not reflect the results of a recently completed write operation. The response might include some stale data. If you repeat your read request after a short time, the response should return the latest data.

Strongly Consistent Reads – When you request a strongly consistent read, DynamoDB returns a response with the most up-to-date data, reflecting the updates from all prior write operations that were successful.

The GetItem operation returns a set of attributes for the item with the given primary key. If there is no matching item, GetItem does not return any data and there will be no Item element in the response.

GetItem provides an eventually consistent read by default. If your application requires a strongly consistent read, set ConsistentRead to true. Although a strongly consistent read might take more time than an eventually consistent read, it always returns the last updated value.

Hence, the correct answer is: Set the ConsistentRead parameter to true when using the GetItem operation.

The option that says: No additional action needed since the GetItem API already provides a strongly consistent read by default is incorrect because, by default, the GetItem operation only provides an eventually consistent read. You have to manually set the ConsistentRead parameter to true to instruct the GetItem operation to use a strongly consistent read.

The option that says: Enable the DynamoDB Streams feature to automatically run the GetItem operations with strong consistent read is incorrect because the DynamoDB Streams feature simply captures a time-ordered sequence of item-level modifications in your DynamoDB table and stores this information in a log for up to 24 hours. It can’t be used to make the GetItem operation to use strongly consistent reads.

The option that says: Use DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) to ensure that the GetItem API fetches the most up-to-date data from all successful write operations is incorrect because DynamoDB Accelerator is just an in-memory cache that provides microsecond latency and delivers up to a 10x read performance improvement to your applications. DAX is not ideal for applications that require strongly consistent reads and systems that cannot tolerate stale data due to eventually consistent reads. 

References:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/APIReference/API_GetItem.html
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/HowItWorks.ReadConsistency.html

Check out this Amazon DynamoDB Cheat Sheet:
https://tutorialsdojo.com/amazon-dynamodb/

Click here for more AWS Certified Database Specialty practice exam questions.

Check out our other AWS practice test courses here:

 

Final Remarks

Hands-on experience helps a lot in preparing for this exam. Many of the questions try to validate whether you have seen a particular error or issue during your practice. However, it is not every day that you have access and resources to build an Amazon Aurora cluster or an Amazon Redshift cluster. Nevertheless, we recommend trying it out with an AWS free-tier account and creating an RDS DB instance for free. The experience of creating the DB instance will help you a lot already.

During the exam, keep in mind the AWS Well-Architected Framework as you read the questions. You will notice keywords that separate two or more possible answers to the problem. Good luck, and if you have any questions, join the Tutorials Dojo Slack channel to exchange knowledge with fellow IT professionals.

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Written by: Jon Bonso

Jon Bonso is the co-founder of Tutorials Dojo, an EdTech startup and an AWS Digital Training Partner that provides high-quality educational materials in the cloud computing space. He graduated from Mapúa Institute of Technology in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in Information Technology. Jon holds 10 AWS Certifications and is also an active AWS Community Builder since 2020.

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