PAS-C01 Practice Test 13 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is running SAP on AWS and wants to ensure that the system meets the SLA for availability. The operations team needs to monitor the health of the SAP application stack (ASCS, PAS, DB). Which AWS service can provide a centralized dashboard to visualize the health and performance metrics?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Dashboards. Amazon CloudWatch Dashboards can aggregate metrics from multiple sources, including custom SAP metrics, into a single centralized view, making it ideal for monitoring SAP application stack health and performance. Option A is correct. Option B (AWS CloudTrail) records API calls for auditing, not real-time health monitoring. Option C (AWS Config) evaluates resource configurations for compliance, not performance. Option D (Amazon S3) is object storage, not a monitoring dashboard.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon S3

Question 2

A company runs SAP on AWS and uses a Network Load Balancer (NLB) to distribute traffic to multiple EC2 instances. The Operations team needs to ensure that the NLB only sends traffic to instances that are healthy. Which health check configuration is appropriate for TCP traffic?

Accepted Answer

TCP health check on the application port. The correct health check for a Network Load Balancer (NLB) handling TCP traffic is a TCP health check on the application port (Option B). NLB supports TCP, HTTP, HTTPS, and TLS health checks, but for raw TCP traffic, a TCP health check directly verifies that the target port is open and responding, which is efficient and appropriate. Option A (ICMP ping) is incorrect because NLB does not support ICMP health checks. Options C and D (HTTP/HTTPS on ports 80/443) are unnecessary for TCP traffic and require the target to run an HTTP server, which may not be the case for all TCP applications.

Answer

ICMP ping

Answer

HTTP health check on port 80

Answer

HTTPS health check on port 443

Question 3

Which TWO actions should be taken to improve the high availability of a single-instance SAP HANA database running on EC2? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Set up HANA System Replication to a second EC2 instance in a different Availability Zone.. HANA System Replication provides a standby instance in a different Availability Zone for automatic failover, improving high availability. Option E is correct because automated EBS snapshots enable point-in-time recovery, reducing recovery time after a failure. Option B is incorrect because Multi-AZ RDS is a feature for RDS databases, not for EC2-hosted SAP HANA. Option C is incorrect because moving HANA data files to FSx for Lustre does not inherently improve availability. Option D is incorrect because increasing instance size improves performance, not availability.

Answer

Enable Multi-AZ on the RDS instance.

Answer

Move the HANA data files to Amazon FSx for Lustre.

Answer

Increase the instance size to a larger type.

Question 4

A company is migrating an SAP Business Suite system to AWS. They are using AWS DMS to replicate data from the on-premises SAP ASE database to Amazon RDS for SAP ASE. After the initial load, the ongoing replication shows a latency of several hours. The source database is heavily used. Which action should the migration team take to reduce replication latency?

Accepted Answer

Increase the source database transaction log size and enable log compression. Increasing instance size may help but does not address the root cause of log space. Option B is incorrect because disabling transaction logging is not feasible for a production database and would break replication. Option C is correct because increasing the source database's transaction log size and enabling log compression reduces log waits and helps DMS keep up with changes. Option D is incorrect because using multiple tasks may cause conflicts and is not a direct solution for latency caused by log retention issues.

Answer

Increase the size of the DMS replication instance

Answer

Disable transaction logging on the source database

Answer

Use multiple DMS tasks for parallel replication

Question 5

An SAP administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue on an SAP HANA database running on an r5.24xlarge instance. The database is I/O bound during high load periods. The administrator has already verified that the EBS volumes are not saturated. What should the administrator check next?

Accepted Answer

Check the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) settings and consider tuning the ring buffer size. On an r5.24xlarge instance, EBS optimization is always enabled by default, so verifying it again is unnecessary. The issue is I/O bound during high load, but EBS volumes are not saturated, indicating the bottleneck is likely at the network layer. The Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) ring buffer size can become overwhelmed under high network traffic, causing packet drops and increased latency, which manifests as I/O wait. Tuning the ring buffer size (e.g., using `ethtool -G eth0 rx 4096 tx 4096`) can reduce drops and improve throughput for SAP HANA's network-intensive operations.

Answer

Verify that EBS optimization is enabled

Answer

Increase the SWAP space on the instance

Answer

Upgrade to a compute-optimized instance like c5.24xlarge

Question 6

A company runs SAP NetWeaver on AWS and uses a Network Load Balancer (NLB) to distribute traffic to multiple application servers. The operations team notices that the NLB is not properly routing traffic to healthy targets. Which three steps should the team take to diagnose the issue? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Confirm that the target instances are registered in the target group and are in the Available state.. Target instances must be registered in the target group and in the Available state for traffic to be routed to them. Option B is correct: Security group rules on target instances must allow traffic from the NLB's subnet for health checks and client traffic. Option C is correct: Health check settings (ping path, port, protocol) must be correctly configured so the NLB can determine target health. Option D is wrong: Cross-zone load balancing distributes traffic across all enabled Availability Zones but does not fix routing to healthy targets. Option E is wrong: CloudWatch metrics can show anomalies but are not a primary diagnostic step for routing to healthy targets; they are more useful for monitoring after initial configuration.

Answer

Enable cross-zone load balancing on the NLB.

Answer

Review the CloudWatch metrics for the NLB to see if there are any anomalies.

Question 7

A company runs SAP HANA on AWS and needs to perform a system copy from production to a test environment. The test environment is in a different AWS account. Which AWS service can be used to securely share the HANA backup files stored in Amazon S3 across accounts?

Accepted Answer

S3 bucket policy. S3 bucket policies can grant cross-account access to the backup files stored in Amazon S3. By attaching a bucket policy that allows the test account to access the backup objects, the company can securely share the files without needing to make them public. Option A (VPC Peering) is incorrect because it provides network connectivity between VPCs but does not grant access to S3 objects. Option B (S3 Transfer Acceleration) is incorrect because it only speeds up data transfer, not cross-account access. Option D (AWS Direct Connect) is incorrect because it provides a dedicated network connection but does not handle S3 access control.

Answer

VPC Peering

Answer

S3 Transfer Acceleration

Answer

AWS Direct Connect

Question 8

A company runs SAP S/4HANA in a multi-AZ deployment with a primary and standby database. During a planned failover test, the database fails over but the SAP system becomes unresponsive. Investigation reveals that the SAP application servers cannot connect to the new primary database because the database VIP is not updated. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The HANA database VIP is not configured to move to the new primary instance during failover.. In a multi-AZ SAP HANA setup, the application servers connect to the database via a virtual IP address (VIP). During failover, the VIP must be moved to the new primary instance for connectivity. If the VIP is not migrated, the application servers will still try to reach the old primary (which is now standby), causing unresponsiveness. Option A is incorrect because the HANA instance number remains constant. Option B is incorrect because DNS records are not typically used for HANA failover; the VIP is used. Option C could cause issues if set to the physical hostname, but in this case the core problem is that the VIP did not move.

Answer

The HANA instance number changed after failover.

Answer

The DNS record for the HANA host still points to the old primary IP address.

Answer

The HANA hostname in the SAP profile is set to the physical instance hostname instead of the VIP.

Question 9

An SAP administrator notices that the SAP HANA database is running out of memory frequently. The system is deployed on an EC2 instance with 512 GB of RAM. The HANA memory usage is peaking at 480 GB. What should the administrator do to resolve this issue?

Accepted Answer

Migrate to an instance with more memory, such as x1e.32xlarge. The HANA database is peaking at 480 GB on a 512 GB instance, indicating that memory is nearly fully utilized. Enabling memory overcommit and setting the HANA memory limit to 90% (460.8 GB) would still be below the peak usage, potentially causing out-of-memory errors. The most straightforward and reliable solution is to migrate to a larger instance type, such as x1e.32xlarge, which offers 976 GB of RAM, providing sufficient headroom for current and future peak demands. This aligns with AWS best practices for SAP HANA workloads.

Answer

Configure a swap file on the instance's root EBS volume

Answer

Enable HANA memory overcommit and set the memory limit to 90%

Answer

Reduce the number of HANA table partitions

Question 10

A company runs SAP on AWS using an SAP HANA database on an R5.8xlarge EC2 instance. The SAP application generates alerts about high disk I/O latency. Which AWS service should the administrator use to identify the root cause?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch. Amazon CloudWatch provides detailed metrics for disk I/O, including latency. Option A is wrong because AWS Trusted Advisor provides best-practice checks, not real-time performance metrics. Option C is wrong because AWS Systems Manager automates operational tasks, not performance monitoring. Option D is wrong because AWS Config is for resource compliance.

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Answer

AWS Systems Manager

Answer

AWS Config

Question 11

A company runs SAP on AWS and needs to implement a disaster recovery (DR) strategy. The primary site is in us-east-1, and the DR site is in us-west-2. The database is SAP HANA. Which approach provides the lowest RPO?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA system replication in synchronous mode across regions.. SAP HANA system replication in synchronous mode across regions provides near-zero RPO (Recovery Point Objective) as data is replicated synchronously to the DR region, ensuring minimal data loss. Option A (asynchronous mode) may have higher RPO due to potential data loss in case of failover. Options B and C (backups to S3 with cross-region replication and EBS snapshots) have significantly higher RPO as they are point-in-time backups, not real-time replication.

Answer

SAP HANA system replication in asynchronous mode.

Answer

Database backups to S3 and cross-region replication of S3 bucket.

Answer

EBS snapshots replicated to the DR region using cross-region snapshot copy.

Question 12

Which THREE components are required to set up a highly available SAP HANA database using AWS services? (Choose 3)

Accepted Answer

Multi-AZ deployment with synchronous replication. Options C, D, and E are correct. A Multi-AZ deployment with synchronous replication (C) provides high availability by replicating data across Availability Zones. A cluster manager like Pacemaker (D) automates failover and manages the cluster. An Elastic IP address (E) provides a static IP that can be remapped to the standby host during failover, ensuring connectivity. Option A (Application Load Balancer) is not required for SAP HANA database HA; it's used for web traffic. Option B (Single AZ) does not provide high availability.

Answer

Application Load Balancer

Answer

Single Availability Zone deployment

Question 13

A company runs SAP on AWS and notices that the SAP application performance degrades during peak hours. The system uses a db.r5.4xlarge RDS for SAP HANA database. Which AWS service should be used to analyze the database performance metrics and identify bottlenecks?

Accepted Answer

Amazon RDS Performance Insights. Amazon RDS Performance Insights is the correct service because it provides a performance dashboard with detailed database metrics, allowing you to identify bottlenecks such as high CPU, memory, or I/O usage. AWS X-Ray is used for tracing requests across microservices, not for database performance analysis. AWS CloudTrail logs API calls for auditing, not performance metrics. Amazon CloudWatch Logs is for storing and monitoring log files, not for real-time database performance analysis.

Answer

AWS X-Ray

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Logs

Question 14

Which THREE AWS services can be used to monitor and log SAP system activities for security and compliance? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Logs. Amazon CloudWatch Logs (C) stores log data from SAP systems, AWS CloudTrail (D) logs API calls for auditing, and AWS Config (E) tracks configuration changes for compliance. Amazon Athena (A) is a query service, not a logging service, and Amazon VPC Flow Logs (B) capture network traffic, not system activities.

Answer

Amazon Athena

Answer

Amazon VPC Flow Logs

Question 15

An SAP system is deployed on AWS using a shared account structure. The security team requires that all changes to SAP security groups be logged and alerted. Which combination of AWS services should be used?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail with Amazon CloudWatch Events. AWS CloudTrail logs all API calls, including changes to security groups (e.g., AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress, RevokeSecurityGroupEgress). Amazon CloudWatch Events can be configured to filter these specific API calls and trigger alerts via SNS or other targets, enabling real-time logging and alerting. Option A (AWS Config + SNS) can detect configuration changes but is not real-time and does not capture API-level details. Option C (Amazon Inspector) is for vulnerability assessment, not change logging. Option D (Amazon GuardDuty) is for threat detection, not security group change monitoring.

Answer

AWS Config with an SNS topic

Answer

Amazon Inspector with Amazon SNS

Answer

Amazon GuardDuty with Amazon SNS