Answer Marked as Wrong for Question with inaccurate explanation.

[hkakutalua]

Question

A production MySQL database hosted on Amazon RDS is running out of disk storage. The management has consulted its solutions architect to increase the disk space without impacting the database performance.

How can the solutions architect satisfy the requirement with the LEAST operational overhead?

Answers:

• Hence, the correct answer is: Modify the DB instance settings and enable storage autoscaling.
• The option that says: Increase the allocated storage for the DB instance is incorrect. Although this will solve the problem of low disk space, increasing the allocated storage might cause performance degradation during the change.
• The option that says: Change the default_storage_engine of the DB instance’s parameter group to MyISAM is incorrect. This is just a storage engine for MySQL. It won’t increase the disk space in any way.
• The option that says: Modify the DB instance storage type to Provisioned IOPS is incorrect. This may improve disk performance but it won’t solve the problem of low database storage.

However, the docs here say that increasing the storage manually doesn’t cause performance degradation or outage.

[Nikee-TutorialsDojo]

Hello Hkakutalua,

Thank you for pointing this out!

As per AWS documentation, you’re correct that manually increasing allocated storage for an RDS instance does not cause downtime or performance degradation. When you modify storage, Amazon RDS uses storage scaling with minimal impact, and in many cases, it’s done without any disruption.

However, in the context of the question, which specifically asks for the solution with the least operational overhead, enabling storage autoscaling is still the most appropriate answer. Here’s why:

• Manual storage increases require human intervention each time the database runs low on space.

• On the other hand, storage autoscaling proactively and automatically increases storage as needed, with no manual effort and no need for monitoring and reacting.

So, while increasing storage manually is a valid and non-disruptive solution, it still involves more operational effort than just enabling autoscaling. That’s why “Modify the DB instance settings and enable storage autoscaling” is the correct answer for the least operational overhead, even though both options are technically sound.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have further questions.

Regards,

Nikee @ Tutorials Dojo

[hkakutalua]

Hi Nikee,

Thanks for clarifying further.

I agree. I just think that the explanation for the wrong answer should be improved.

Best,

Henrick