Question #777
A developer is encountering HTTP 400: ProvisionedThroughputExceededException errors intermittently when performing write operations on an Amazon DynamoDB table. When the error occurs, the operation fails and no data is written.
What best practice should first be implemented to resolve this issue?
Contact AWS Support to request a provisioned throughput increase.
Use the AWS SDK to execute the write operations.
Analyze the application and reduce the number of write operations.
Retry the operation with exponential backoff.
Explanation
Answer D is correct because DynamoDB throws ProvisionedThroughputExceededException when write operations exceed the provisioned capacity. Retrying with exponential backoff is AWS's recommended best practice to handle such transient throttling errors. Exponential backoff reduces request frequency gradually, allowing DynamoDB to recover.
Option A is incorrect because increasing provisioned throughput should be considered only if throttling persists after implementing retries. Option B is not the solution because the AWS SDK already includes automatic retries, so using it alone doesn't resolve the issue. Option C is impractical if the application requires the current write volume. The key takeaway is that retries with exponential backoff should always be the first mitigation step for intermittent throttling errors.
Answer
The correct answer is: D