Question

A cloud-hosted REST API intermittently returns HTTP 504 errors during peak traffic. The application servers show low CPU and memory usage, but the managed database shows a spike in 'active connections' that plateaus at exactly 100. Application logs show 'timeout acquiring connection from pool' entries that correlate with the 504 responses. What is the MOST likely root cause?

Accepted Answer

The application's database connection pool maximum is set too low for peak concurrency, exhausting available connections

Answer

The database instance is undersized and needs a larger compute tier

Answer

The load balancer idle timeout is shorter than the application response time

Answer

TLS certificate renegotiation is adding latency to each database query