28/10/2019 MongoDB University

Practice Certification Exam

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MongoDB DBA Exam
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Exam Overview

SECTION CORRECT INCORRECT TOTAL

Philosophy & Features 2 1 3

CRUD 3 2 5

Indexes 8 3 11

Server Administration 9 2 11

Application Administration 3 7 10

Replication 8 2 10

Sharding 6 4 10

Philosophy & Features

Question 1

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Question 2

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Question 3

Problem: Incorrect Answer

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Problem: Incorrect Answer Hide Details

Consider the following aggregation pipeline:

COPY

use services

db.restaurants.aggregate([
{
"$sort" : {"rating" : -1}
},
{
"$match": {
"reviews": { "$gte": 5 }
}
}
])

What optimizations will the optimizer make to the stages?

the result set will be limited to reduce network latency

the sort order will be reversed to the direction of the shard key

the $match stage will be moved to before the $sort stage

Detailed Answer

The optimizer will re-order the match stage to before the sort.

CRUD

Question 1

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Question 2

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Consider the following query:

db.loans.find({ "guarantor": { "$exists": tr

COPY

Which of the following documents could be returned by this query?

{
"loan_amount_USD": NumberDecimal(2000),
"due_date": "01-30-2023",
"guarantor": false
}

{
"loan_amount_USD": NumberDecimal(10000),
"due_date": "01-30-2027",
"guarantor": true
}

{
"loan_amount_USD": NumberDecimal(1000),
"due_date": "01-30-2023",
}

Detailed Answer

Correct Answers

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COPY

{
"loan_amount_USD": NumberDecimal(10000),
"due_date": "01-30-2027",
"guarantor": true
}

COPY

{
"loan_amount_USD": NumberDecimal(2000),
"due_date": "01-30-2023",
"guarantor": false
}

Both of these documents contain the guarantor field, so they would both be
returned by this query.

Incorrect Answer

COPY

{
"loan_amount_USD": NumberDecimal(1000),
"due_date": "01-30-2023",
}

This document does not contain the guarantor field, so it would not be
returned by this query.

Question 3

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The $geoWithin operator finds:

documents that completely overlap with a GeoJson Polygon

documents within a GeoJson Polygon

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documents that partially overlap with a GeoJson Polygon

Detailed Answer

Incorrect Answer:

finds document that partially overlap a GeoJson Polygon

This option is incorrect. The $geoWithin returns documents within a

GeoJson Polygon, or Multi-Polygon, therefore all documents need to be
within the boundaries defined by the given GeoJson.

Correct Answers:

finds documents within a GeoJson Polygon

finds documents that completely overlap a GeoJson Polygon

All document coordinates are required to be within the defined GeoJson

Polygon or Multi-Polygon therefore all documents need to completely
overlap in their defined geometry.

$geoWithin

Question 4

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Question 5

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Indexes

Question 1

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Question 2

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Question 3

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Question 4

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Given the following query:

COPY

db.animals.find(
{},
{ "_id": 0, "species": 1, "name": 1,
"number_of_chromosomes": 1 }
).sort(
{ "number_of_chromosomes": -1 }
)

and the following index:

{ "number_of_chromosomes": 1 } COPY

How will the data get retrieved, and why?

index scan followed by a sort, because the index is built in ascending

order

index scan in descending order without the need to sort

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in-memory sort after the data is retrieved from the collection

Detailed Answer

Correct answer:

index scan in descending order without the need to sort

This is because when we are sorting with a single field index, we can always sort
our documents either in ascending or descending order regardless of the
physical ordering of the index keys.

Question 5

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Consider the following index in the plants collection:

{ climate: 1 } COPY

Which of the following queries could use this index?

db.plants.find({ type: { $in: [ "succulent", "moss" ]

} })

db.plants.find({ type: "conifer", climate: "forest" })

db.plants.find({ climate: { $in: [ "marsh", "swamp" ]

} })

Detailed Answer

Correct Answers:

db.plants.find({ climate: { $in: [ "marsh", "swamp" ] } })

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p ({ { [ , p ] } })

db.plants.find({ type: "conifer", climate: "forest" })

These queries can use the index, because the query selector filters on
the "climate" field.

Incorrect Answer:

db.plants.find({ type: { $in: [ "succulent", "moss" ] } })

These queries can NOT use the index, because the query selector
does not filter on the "climate" field.

Question 6

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Question 7

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Question 8

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Question 9

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What is the default mode when using explain to analyze a query?

allPlansExecution

executionStats

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queryPlanner

Detailed Answer

The correct answer is queryPlanner. This is to allow immediate use on a server

that may already be under heavy load to help the administrator determine if a

query would have used an index without impacting other operations more heavily.

Question 10

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Question 11

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Server Administration

Question 1

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Consider a write operation that takes 150 milliseconds, and a database profiler
that uses the default value of slowms.

Which of the following profiler levels would cause the profiler to capture this
operation?

2
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Detailed Answer

Correct Answers

This profiling level will record all operations that exceed the slowms
limit, which is 100ms by default.

This profiling level will record all operations, regardless of how long
they take.

Incorrect Answers

This profiling level will not record any events to the

system.profile collection.

Question 2

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Question 3

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Given this log message entry:

COPY

2019-01-08T11:41:01.661-0500 I COMMAND [conn1]

command test.names
appName: "MongoDB Shell"
command: find { find: "names", filter: { _id: {
$exists: 1.0 } }, $db: "test"}
planSummary: IXSCAN { id: 1 } cursorid:118472089469
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planSummary: IXSCAN { _id: 1 } cursorid:118472089469
keysExamined:101
docsExamined:101 numYields:0 nreturned:101 reslen:3822
locks:{ Global: { acquireCount: { r: 1 } }, Database:
{ acquireCount: { r: 1 } },
Collection: { acquireCount: { r: 1 } } }
protocol:op_msg 0ms

Which of the following are true?

The logged command was handled by connection [conn1]

The logged component is a find command

The message log level is INFORMATIONAL

Detailed Answer

All options are correct!

Level is INFORMATIONAL

This is reflected in the I value after the message timestamp information.

2019-01-08T11:41:01.661-0500 **I** COMMAND [conn1]
command test.names...

The logged component was a find command

We can see that by looking into the component information, COMMAND,

and the command description: **command**: find { find:
"names", filter: { _id: { $exists: 1.0 } }, $db: "test"}

The logged command was handled by connection [conn1]

The connection information can be found as the forth information element

in the log message:

2019-01-08T11:41:01.661-0500 I COMMAND **[conn1]**

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Question 4

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Question 5

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Question 6

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Question 7

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Question 8

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Question 9

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Question 10

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Question 11

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Application Administration

Question 1

Problem: Incorrect Answer Hide Details

Consider the following operation:

COPY

db.createUser({
"user": "appusername",
"pwd": "apppassword",
"roles": [ { "role": "readWrite", "db":
"applicationDB" } ]
})

Assume that the audit log captured this operation. By default, what information
will appear in the audit log?

The password apppassword

The role readWrite

The username appusername

Detailed Answer

Correct Answers

The username appusername.

The role readWrite.

Incorrect Answers

The password apppassword.

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The password in a createUser command is redacted from the audit log by

default, for security purposes.

Question 2

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Consider the following audit filter:

--auditFilter '{ "atype": { "$in": [ "create

"param.ns": "test.*"}' COPY

Which of the following operations must appear in the audit log?

use test
db.createCollection("games")

use test
db.dropCollection("games")

use production
db.createCollection("test")

Detailed Answer

Correct Option:

COPY

use test
db.createCollection("games")
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This instruction will be logged in the audit log because both the audit namespace
is test.games and the action type createCollection are defined in the
auditFilter.

Incorrect Options:

COPY

use production
db.createCollection("test")

This command namespace production.test is not included in the audit filter,

therefore the operation would not be logged.

COPY

use test
db.dropCollection("games")

In this case both the action dropCollection and the namespace test.games
are part of the audit filter. However, given the information that we have, we
cannot guarantee that the collection games exists in the test database,
therefore we cannot be sure that this command will be successful. The audit log
will only log successful operations, operations that complete. Given that we are
looking for operations that must be logged, we cannot tell for sure that this
would be a successful operation.

Question 3

Problem: Incorrect Answer Hide Details

When creating a database user in the $external database, using the subject
line of a X.509 certificate, what password should you use?

$external

x509

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No password

Detailed Answer

The correct answer is "No password". This is because the user created in the
$external database must exactly match the subject line in the presented

certificate, and the presented certificate must be signed by the same Certificate
Authority (CA) that signed the certificate used by the server.

Question 4

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Question 5

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Consider the following user:

COPY

{
"_id" : "admin.matt",
"user" : "matt",
"db" : "admin",
"roles" : [
{
"role" : "userAdminAnyDatabase",
"db" : "admin"
}
],
"mechanisms" : [
"SCRAM-SHA-1",
"SCRAM-SHA-256"
]
}

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Which commands would let you see the privileges and actions for this user?

db.getUser( "daniel", { "showPrivileges": true } )

db.getRole( "userAdminAnyDatabase" )

db.getRoles( { "showPrivileges": true, showBuiltinRoles: true } )

Detailed Answer

Correct Options:

db.getUser( "daniel", { "showPrivileges": true } )

This is the most straightforward way to see the privileges and actions this user
can execute.

db.getRoles( { "showPrivileges": true, showBuiltinRoles: true } )

This command would give you more than you need, listing all the privileges for all
roles, however since our user has only one role, it is possible to locate that
section in the output to see the list of privileges and actions that are allowed.

Incorrect Options:

db.getRole( "userAdminAnyDatabase" )

This command would provide the desired information if you add the option
{"showPrivileges": true} to it. Otherwise, the information returned is much
less detailed.

Question 6

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Consider the following custom role:

COPY

use admin
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use admin
db.createRole(
{
"role": "intern",
"privileges": [
{ "resource": { "db": "", "collections": "" },
"actions": [ "find", "createIndex" ] }
],
"roles": []
}
)

Which of the following are commands that this user-defined role is authorized to
execute?

db.customers.createIndex({"username": 1 })

db.products.find({"name": {"$exists": 1} })

db.products.insert({"name": "Brillo Soap" })

Detailed Answer

Correct Options:

db.products.find({"name": {"$exists": 1} })

db.customers.createIndex({"username": 1 })

Both these operations will be allowed by the intern role given that this role
allows for find and createIndex actions in all collections and in all
collections.

db.products.insert({"name": "Brillo Soap" })

The insert action was not granted to the role.

Question 7
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Question 8

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Consider the following custom role:

COPY

db.getRole('readWriteAndDbAdmin')
{
"role": "readWriteAndDbAdmin",
"db": "products",
"isBuiltin": false,
"roles": [
{
"role": "readWrite",
"db": "products"
}
],
"inheritedRoles": [
{
"role": "readWrite",
"db": "products"
}
]
}

You are requested to grant new set of privileges to this role, so you run the
following command:

COPY

db.grantRolesToRole(
"readWriteAndDbAdmin",
[ { "role": "dbAdmin", "db": "products" } ]
)

To check that the role now contains the expected privileges you run this
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To check that the role now contains the expected privileges, you run this
command:

db.getRole("readWriteAndDbAdmin") COPY

What would be the expected output of this command ?

{
"role": "readWriteAndDbAdmin",
"db": "products",
"isBuiltin": false,
"roles": [
{
"role": "readWrite",
"db": "products"
},
{
"role": "dbAdmin",
"db": "products"
}
],
"inheritedRoles": [
{
"role": "dbAdmin",
"db": "products"
},
{
"role": "readWrite",
"db": "products"
}
]
}

{
"role": "readWriteAndDbAdmin",
"db": "products",
"isBuiltin": false,
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"roles": [
{
"role": "dbAdmin",
"db": "products"
}
],
"inheritedRoles": [

{
"role": "readWrite",
"db": "products"
}
]
}

{
"role": "readWriteAndDbAdmin",
"db": "products",
"isBuiltin": false,
"roles": [
{
"role": "readWrite",
"db": "products"
}
],
"inheritedRoles": [
{
"role": "dbAdmin",
"db": "products"
}
]
}

Detailed Answer

Correct Answer:

After running all of the commands, the output of the getRole() command will
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be the following:

COPY

{
"role": "readWriteAndDbAdmin",
"db": "products",
"isBuiltin": false,

"roles": [
{
"role": "readWrite",
"db": "products"
},
{
"role": "dbAdmin",
"db": "products"
}
],
"inheritedRoles": [
{
"role": "dbAdmin",
"db": "products"
},
{
"role": "readWrite",
"db": "products"
}
]
}

The other options contain incorrect inheritedRoles or roles.

Question 9

Problem: Incorrect Answer Hide Details

Where does MongoDB use TLS 1.1+ encryption algorithms?

Transport layer

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Encrypted storage engine

Password salting

Detailed Answer

Transport layer

MongoDB uses TLS 1.1+ to encrypt client-server and intra-cluster network

transport layer communication.

Question 10

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Replication

Question 1

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Question 2

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Which command would you use to add an arbiter to an existing replica set on
host mongo2, running on port 27017?

rs.reconfig({"host": "mongo2", "port": 27017,

"arbiter": "true"})

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rs.addArb("mongo2:27107")

rs.add("mongo2:27017, arb: true")

Detailed Answer

Correct Option

rs.addArb("mongo2:27107") COPY

This command will add the arbiter on mongo2:27107.

Incorrect Options:

rs.add("mongo2:27017, arb: true") COPY

Is not a valid command.

rs.reconfig({"host": "mongo2", "port": 27017

COPY

Is not a valid command, you need to pass a full configuration document to

rs.reconfig().

Question 3

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Question 4

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Question 5

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Question 6

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Question 7

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Question 8

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Question 9

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Question 10

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What do binary and statement-based replication have in common?

They both work across different operating systems.

They both provide availability in a database server.

They are both used in MongoDB.

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Detailed Answer

Correct Answer

They both provide availability in a database server.

Replicating data provides availability in a database server, because it

keeps multiple servers up-to-date and ready to serve database
requests.

Incorrect Answers

Both forms of replication are used in MongoDB.

MongoDB uses statement-based replication in replica sets. This

solution is agnostic of any machine-level dependencies.

Both forms of replication work across different operating systems.

Statement-based replication will work across platforms, because

MongoDB commands can be understood by any operating system or
software version.

Binary replication will not work across different platforms, because it

uses binary differences to replicate data, and any change to the
platform may affect these binary differences drastically.

Sharding

Question 1

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Question 2

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Question 3

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Question 4

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Which is true of scatter gather queries?

scatter gather queries can be triggered by using your shard key in your
query predicates

the mongos has to go to each shard to check if the shard has the
requested documents

scatter gather queries are highly performant

Detailed Answer

Incorrect Options:

scatter gather queries can be triggered by using your shard key in your query
predicates

Using the shard key in your query predicates prevents scatter gather
queries by routing the query to the correct shard. This is due to the config
server being aware of the distribution of the values across the cluster.

scatter gather queries are highly performant

Scatter gather queries are not performant as the mongos has to go to each
shard to check if the requested documents are present.

Correct Option

the mongos has to go to each shard to check if the shard has the requested
documents

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Not querying on your shard key causes scatter gather queries. As a result,
the mongos has no way of checking which shard the data resides on. This
causes the mongos needs to route the query to each shard to gather the
result set.

Question 5

Problem: Incorrect Answer Hide Details

How can you increase the cardinality of the shard key?

Increase the number of chunks.

Create an index on the shard key.

Use a compound shard key.

Increase the number of shards.

Use multiple shard keys.

Detailed Answer

Correct Answer:

Use a compound shard key.

Using a compound shard key creates more possibilities for the value
of the shard key, by using each unique combination of all the fields in
the key.

Incorrect Answers:

Use multiple shard keys.

You cannot shard on multiple keys in a collection.

I th b f h d
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Increase the number of shards.

Adding more shards will decrease the load on each shard, but this
will not increase the cardinality of the shard key.

Increase the number of chunks.

This will be a result of increasing the cardinality of the shard key, not
a cause.

Create an index on the shard key.

It is already a requirement that the shard key has an index, therefore

this will not increase the cardinality of the shard key.

Question 6

Problem: Incorrect Answer Hide Details

At which point does the balancer decide to start moving chunks from one shard
to another?

when some shards have too many chunks compared to others

there has been a request to drain a shard due to a removeShard

command

zone sharding is used and some chunks are identified to be on the

wrong shard

Detailed Answer

Correct Options:

when some shards have too many chunks compared to others

zone sharding is used and some chunks are identified to be on the wrong
shard
there has been a request to drain a shard due to a removeShard
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there has been a request to drain a shard due to a removeShard
command

All of these scenarios trigger a chunk migration.

Question 7

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Question 8

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Question 9

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You have the following operational requirements and benchmarks within your
organization:

Full backup or restore times can never exceed 20 minutes

Client read and writes can never exceed 95 ms latency
The current machines are provisioned with 16GB of RAM and
4TB disk space
Backup and recovery times with 1.5TB took 15 minutes each,
respectively
The next available server size is 32GB RAM and 8TB disk
space with a monthly cost increase of 10% for double the
performance.

The application is expected to grow in users and resource consumption at a rate

of 7% monthly. Consider the following scenarios that represent different
applications:

Scenario A: Your replica set nodes are consuming 10% of

available RAM and your database is 200GB, and a new law
was passed in the EU requiring your organization to store
certain data about EU customers within the EU. 66% of your
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users are location within the Americas with an average read

and write response time of 90ms.
Scenario B: Your replica set nodes are consuming 90% of
available RAM and your database is 400GB
Scenario C: Your replica set nodes are consuming 60% of a
available RAM and your database is 2.8TB

Select the scenario(s) above where sharding should be considered.

Detailed Answer

The correct answers are scenarios A and C.

Scenario C: While the cost of vertically scaling is acceptable, we're already using
2.8TB of disk space. Considering we benchmarked a backup operation and
restore operation at 15 minutes each with 1.5TB of data, we're already beyond
our SLAs. Sharding should have already been considered much sooner.

Scenario A: This is a real world scenario that zone sharding was designed to
address, and depending on the type of information your organization stores you
may be subject to regulations requiring you to store data in a specific
geographical area. Considering the majority of users are located in the Americas
approaching SLA limits, sharding is more appropriate here than relocating all
data to the EU.

Let's discuss the incorrect answer.

In scenario B, we're consuming 10% of available disk (400GB) and 90% of

available RAM. This indicates quite an abundance of indexes for more
performant reads. Based on benchmarks, backup and restore times are within
acceptable SLAs and the cost to scale vertically is cheaper than the cost to
scale horizontally. Based on the information provided, sharding is not appropriate
in this scenario.

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Question 10

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