AWS Database study guide
AWS Database · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
AWS Certified Database – Specialty (often referenced by its exam code, DBS-C01) is a specialty-level credential aimed at database practitioners who already work hands-on with AWS data services and want a formal way to demonstrate that depth. It is not an entry-level certification: the target candidate designs, migrates, operates, secures, and troubleshoots production database workloads on AWS across relational, key-value, document, graph, in-memory, and analytical engines. The AWS Database study guide has 5 sections and about 1,838 words.
01Workload-Specific Database Design
Every design question on this exam opens with a workload description: a product catalog with wildly varying attributes, a session store needing microsecond latency, a social graph, an append-only audit ledger, or a familiar Oracle schema being lifted. Identify the shape of the data and the query pattern first, then select the engine.
385 words, about 2 min02Deployment and Migration
Know the difference between a Multi-AZ deployment (synchronous standby, automatic failover, no read traffic) and read replicas (asynchronous, readable, promotable). Aurora Global Database replicates at the storage layer to secondary Regions with typically sub-second lag and a one-second RPO, which is the answer for cross-Region disaster recovery or low-latency global reads.
342 words, about 2 min03Management and Operations
Automated backups enable point-in-time recovery to any second within a retention window of 1–35 days; manual snapshots persist until you delete them and can be copied across Regions or accounts. Restoring either creates a new instance or cluster with a new endpoint - a fact exam questions exploit.
357 words, about 2 min04Monitoring and Maintenance
CloudWatch holds the built-in database metrics at one-minute granularity: CPUUtilization , FreeableMemory , DatabaseConnections , ReadIOPS / WriteIOPS , ReplicaLag , and for Aurora AuroraReplicaLag , VolumeBytesUsed , and BufferCacheHitRatio . Enhanced Monitoring runs an agent in the instance and delivers OS-level process and memory detail at 1–60 second granularity.
367 words, about 2 min05Security and Compliance
Think in four layers: network (private subnets, security groups as stateful allow-lists, no public accessibility), identity (IAM policies and roles), credentials (Secrets Manager with rotation rather than hard-coded passwords), and data (KMS encryption at rest, TLS in transit). Encryption at rest uses KMS keys - either an AWS-managed key or a customer-managed key for granular policy control.
387 words, about 2 min