PAS-C01 Practice Test 15 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is running SAP S/4HANA on AWS with a scale-out HANA configuration. The system is experiencing performance degradation during peak hours. Monitoring shows high network throughput on the HANA nodes. Which EC2 instance family is best suited to mitigate this?

Accepted Answer

x2iedn instances with high network bandwidth.. The x2iedn instances are specifically designed for SAP HANA scale-out configurations, offering high memory per vCPU and dedicated high network bandwidth via the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA). In a scale-out HANA setup, nodes communicate intensively over the network for data synchronization and shared storage access, so high network throughput directly mitigates the performance degradation during peak hours.

Answer

c5 instances with placement groups.

Answer

r5 instances with enhanced networking.

Answer

m5 instances with EBS optimization.

Question 2

An SAP administrator wants to attach the EBS volume shown above to two EC2 instances running SAP HANA in a scale-out configuration. What is the issue?

Accepted Answer

The volume is gp3 type, which does not support Multi-Attach.. The gp3 volume type does not support the Multi-Attach feature, which is required to attach a single EBS volume to multiple EC2 instances simultaneously. For SAP HANA scale-out configurations, shared storage is necessary for the /hana/shared file system, and Multi-Attach is only supported on io1 and io2 block express volumes. Therefore, using a gp3 volume prevents the multi-attach capability needed for this architecture.

Answer

The volume size is too small for HANA scale-out.

Answer

SAP HANA scale-out does not support shared volumes.

Answer

The volume IOPS is insufficient.

Question 3

An SAP administrator is deploying an SAP ASCS instance using CloudFormation. The deployment fails because the instance cannot be reached from other SAP components. Based on the exhibit, what is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The security group does not allow inbound traffic on the required SAP ports.. The SAP ASCS instance must be reachable by other SAP components (e.g., PAS, AAS) on specific ports for services like the SAP Message Server (port 36xx/TCP) and SAP Enqueue Server (port 32xx/TCP). The exhibit shows the security group lacks inbound rules for these ports, so traffic from other components is blocked, causing the deployment to fail. Without proper inbound access, the ASCS instance cannot participate in the SAP system's communication, leading to the unreachability error.

Answer

The instance type m5.large is not certified for SAP ASCS.

Answer

The instance lacks an IAM role to join the SAP domain.

Answer

The root volume is too small and uses gp2, which is not supported for SAP.

Question 4

An SAP administrator wants to monitor the CPU utilization of SAP application servers using Amazon CloudWatch. What is the minimum configuration required?

Accepted Answer

Install and configure the AWS CloudWatch Agent on each SAP application server.. The AWS CloudWatch Agent must be installed and configured on each SAP application server to collect custom metrics like CPU utilization at the granularity and frequency required for SAP monitoring. CloudWatch by default only provides basic EC2 metrics (every 5 minutes) and cannot capture OS-level or application-level CPU utilization without the agent. The agent sends metrics via the CloudWatch PutMetricData API, enabling detailed monitoring of SAP-specific performance counters.

Answer

Set up an AWS Lambda function to query EC2 metrics from the CloudWatch API.

Answer

Configure SAP Solution Manager to export metrics to CloudWatch.

Answer

Enable EC2 detailed monitoring from the AWS Management Console.

Question 5

Which THREE factors should be considered when choosing an EC2 instance type for SAP HANA? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

The instance must have enough memory to fit the HANA database.. Option A is correct because SAP HANA is an in-memory database that loads the entire dataset into RAM for processing. The EC2 instance must have sufficient memory to accommodate the HANA database size, including overhead for system tables and temporary data, as specified in the SAP HANA memory sizing guidelines.

Answer

The instance should have GPU accelerators for faster query processing.

Answer

The instance must have local instance store volumes for data persistence.

Question 6

An SAP environment on AWS is using a single Availability Zone. The company wants to achieve high availability for SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS). Which architecture should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Deploy ASCS and ERS in separate Availability Zones using AWS Launch Wizard for SAP.. Option C is correct because achieving high availability for SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS) on AWS requires deploying them in separate Availability Zones (AZs) to protect against an entire AZ failure. AWS Launch Wizard for SAP automates the deployment of a multi-AZ SAP system, including the necessary infrastructure components like Elastic Load Balancing and Amazon EFS, ensuring that the ASCS and ERS instances are in different AZs with a replicated enqueue table. This architecture aligns with SAP's recommendation for a high-availability setup using a Pacemaker cluster with STONITH fencing, which is supported by AWS.

Answer

Deploy ASCS and ERS in the same Availability Zone with a second instance as passive.

Answer

Place ASCS and ERS on the same instance to reduce complexity.

Answer

Use Auto Scaling groups to automatically replace failed instances.

Question 7

A company is designing an SAP HANA disaster recovery (DR) solution on AWS. The primary site is in us-east-1, and the DR site is in us-west-2. The RPO must be less than 15 minutes, and the RTO must be less than 2 hours. Which replication strategy meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA system replication with synchronous mode and pre-provisioned DR instances.. SAP HANA system replication with synchronous mode ensures that every committed transaction is replicated to the DR site before acknowledgment, meeting the <15-minute RPO. Pre-provisioned DR instances in us-west-2 allow rapid failover, enabling the <2-hour RTO by eliminating the need to provision infrastructure during recovery.

Answer

SAP HANA log shipping to an S3 bucket in the DR region.

Answer

S3 cross-region replication for HANA data files.

Answer

EBS snapshot replication to the DR region every 15 minutes.

Question 8

An SAP administrator needs to back up the SAP HANA database daily to Amazon S3 using the Backint agent. What is the prerequisite for this integration?

Accepted Answer

Install the AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) on the HANA host.. Option A is correct because the AWS Backint agent for SAP HANA requires the AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) to be installed on the HANA host. The Backint agent uses SSM Agent to securely communicate with AWS Systems Manager, which orchestrates the backup workflow and enables the agent to write backup data directly to Amazon S3. Without the SSM Agent, the Backint agent cannot authenticate or transfer data to S3, making it a mandatory prerequisite.

Answer

Create a backup vault in AWS Backup.

Answer

Mount an Amazon EFS file system to the HANA host for backup storage.

Answer

Configure AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to replicate data to S3.

Question 9

An SAP system uses an Amazon RDS for SAP ASE database. The database is experiencing high connection timeouts. The SAP team notices that the RDS instance's maximum connections parameter is set to 500. What should be done to resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

Modify the RDS parameter group to increase max_connections.. The high connection timeouts are caused by the max_connections parameter being set to 500, which is the default for many RDS for SAP ASE instances. Increasing this value in the RDS parameter group allows more concurrent connections to the database, directly resolving the timeout issue without changing the instance size or storage. This is the simplest and most effective fix because the database engine itself is capable of handling more connections if the parameter is adjusted.

Answer

Upgrade the RDS instance to a larger size with more vCPUs.

Answer

Create a read replica to offload connections.

Answer

Increase the allocated storage for the RDS instance.

Question 10

A company is running SAP ERP on AWS and wants to ensure that their SAP system is backed up according to SAP best practices. Which backup method should they use for the SAP HANA database?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA Backint to Amazon S3. SAP HANA Backint to Amazon S3 is the correct backup method because it integrates directly with SAP HANA's native backup interface (Backint), allowing SAP to manage backup and restore operations natively. This approach supports SAP best practices for HANA database backups, including full, incremental, and differential backups, and leverages Amazon S3 for durable, scalable storage without requiring external scripting or manual snapshot coordination.

Answer

AWS Backup service

Answer

EBS snapshots of the data volumes

Answer

Amazon S3 replication

Question 11

An SAP administrator is creating an IAM policy for an EC2 instance that performs SAP database backups to S3 and creates EBS snapshots. The policy as shown fails to allow the EC2 instance to perform backup operations. What is the most likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The policy does not include the 's3:ListBucket' action for the bucket itself.. Option D is correct because the policy lacks the `s3:ListBucket` action for the bucket itself (ARN without `/*`). When an EC2 instance performs SAP database backups to S3, the AWS SDK or CLI first issues a `ListBucket` request to verify the bucket exists and to list objects before uploading. Without this permission, the backup operation fails at the initial listing step, even if `s3:PutObject` is allowed on the object ARN.

Answer

The S3 resource ARN is incorrect; it should be 'arn:aws:s3:::sap-backup-bucket' without the '/*'.

Answer

The S3 actions are too permissive; they should be restricted to specific prefixes.

Answer

The ec2:CreateSnapshot action must be restricted to specific volume ARNs.

Question 12

An SAP system on AWS uses an Application Load Balancer (ALB) to distribute traffic to multiple SAP Web Dispatchers. The system is experiencing intermittent session drops. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The ALB is not configured for sticky sessions.. The ALB operates at Layer 7 and, by default, distributes each request independently across healthy targets. SAP Web Dispatchers maintain user session state (e.g., logon tickets, application context) locally. Without sticky sessions (session affinity) enabled on the ALB, subsequent requests from the same user can be routed to a different Web Dispatcher, causing the new dispatcher to lack the session context and dropping the user's session. Enabling stickiness based on the ALB-generated cookie ensures all requests from a session are sent to the same Web Dispatcher, preventing these intermittent drops.

Answer

The ALB deletion protection is enabled.

Answer

The ALB health check interval is too short.

Answer

Cross-zone load balancing is not enabled on the ALB.

Question 13

A company is running SAP on AWS and wants to use a custom AMI for SAP application servers. They need to ensure that the AMI is encrypted using AWS KMS. Which step is required to launch encrypted instances from this AMI?

Accepted Answer

Copy the AMI and specify a KMS key for encryption.. Option D is correct because to launch encrypted instances from an unencrypted custom AMI, you must first copy the AMI and specify a KMS key for encryption during the copy process. This creates an encrypted AMI that can then be used to launch encrypted instances. AWS does not allow you to directly encrypt an existing AMI in place; the copy operation is the required mechanism.

Answer

Use an AWS Marketplace AMI that is already encrypted.

Answer

Use the AWS Management Console to modify the AMI to enable encryption.

Answer

Specify the KMS key ID in the run-instances command.

Question 14

An SAP administrator needs to migrate an on-premises SAP HANA system to AWS. The total size of the HANA data and log volumes is 5 TB. The administrator wants to minimize downtime and use the fastest possible initial data transfer method. Which approach should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Snowball Edge to physically ship the data. AWS Snowball Edge provides a physical data transfer device that can be shipped to the on-premises site, loaded with the 5 TB of SAP HANA data and log volumes, and then shipped back to AWS for ingestion into an S3 bucket. This approach offers the fastest initial transfer for large datasets (multi-TB) over a WAN, as it bypasses network bandwidth limitations entirely, minimizing downtime compared to internet-based or dedicated network transfers.

Answer

Use Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration to upload the data over the internet

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Use AWS Direct Connect to transfer the data over a dedicated network connection

Answer

Use VPC Peering to connect on-premises to AWS and copy data

Question 15

Which TWO configurations are required for a high-availability SAP HANA deployment on AWS using Pacemaker? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

STONITH fencing configured for the cluster nodes.. STONITH (Shoot The Other Node In The Head) fencing is required in a Pacemaker cluster to ensure that a failed or unresponsive node is forcefully isolated before resources are failed over. Without STONITH, a split-brain scenario can occur where both nodes attempt to act as the primary, leading to data corruption. On AWS, STONITH is typically implemented using the AWS fence agent (fence_aws) which uses API calls to stop or reboot the instance.

Answer

Placement groups in separate Availability Zones for the cluster nodes.

Answer

EBS volumes with multi-attach enabled for shared storage.

Answer

An AWS Classic Load Balancer to route traffic to the active node.