PAS-C01 Practice Questions 2 — 50 Questions

Question 1

Which TWO AWS services can be used to monitor the performance of SAP applications? (Select two.)

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch. Amazon CloudWatch is correct because it provides comprehensive monitoring for SAP applications by collecting metrics such as CPU utilization, memory usage, disk I/O, and network throughput from EC2 instances running SAP. You can set custom CloudWatch alarms to trigger actions when SAP-specific performance thresholds are breached, and integrate with SAP's CCMS (Computing Center Management System) via the AWS SAP Monitoring agent to pull SAP application-level metrics like dialog response times and buffer hit ratios.

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS Shield

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Question 2

A systems administrator is troubleshooting an SAP HANA database that runs on an EC2 instance. The exhibit shows the block device mappings of the EC2 instance. The administrator needs to ensure that the data volumes (/dev/sdf and /dev/sdg) are not accidentally terminated when the instance is terminated. However, the administrator also wants to take a nightly snapshot of these volumes using AWS Backup. Which of the following is a potential issue with the current configuration?

Accepted Answer

The volumes are not tagged, so AWS Backup may not automatically include them in backup plans.. AWS Backup uses resource tags to identify which resources to include in backup plans. If the volumes /dev/sdf and /dev/sdg are not tagged with the appropriate key-value pairs that match the backup plan's tag-based selection criteria, AWS Backup will not automatically discover and include them in nightly snapshots. This can lead to missing backups for critical SAP HANA data volumes.

Answer

The volume /dev/sdf has DeleteOnTermination set to false, which will cause data persistence issues.

Answer

The device names /dev/sdf and /dev/sdg are reserved for NVMe instance storage and should not be used for EBS.

Answer

The volumes are attached to a running instance, which prevents snapshot creation.

Question 3

A company is migrating its SAP HANA database to AWS. The database is 3 TB and runs on a dedicated physical server. The company wants to use a HANA-certified EC2 instance. Which instance type should the company choose?

Accepted Answer

x1e.32xlarge. The x1e.32xlarge instance is SAP HANA-certified and provides 1952 GB of memory, which is sufficient for a 3 TB HANA database when considering compression and overhead. The other options either lack sufficient memory or are not HANA-certified. Specifically, the i3.16xlarge (488 GB) is not HANA-certified for large instances, the m5.24xlarge (384 GB) has too little memory, and the r5.24xlarge (768 GB) also lacks the required capacity.

Answer

i3.16xlarge

Answer

m5.24xlarge

Answer

r5.24xlarge

Question 4

An SAP administrator is designing a backup strategy for SAP HANA on AWS. Which THREE practices should be implemented to ensure reliable backups?

Accepted Answer

Take consistent EBS snapshots of HANA volumes after quiescing the database. Consistent EBS snapshots of HANA volumes after quiescing the database ensure crash-consistent backups, which are essential for SAP HANA's data integrity. Quiescing flushes all in-memory data to disk and freezes I/O, allowing the snapshot to capture a point-in-time state that HANA can recover from without corruption. Without quiescing, snapshots may be inconsistent and lead to database failures during restore.

Answer

Store backups in Amazon S3 One Zone-IA

Answer

Disable encryption on backup targets to reduce latency

Question 5

An SAP system administrator notices that an SAP HANA database on AWS is experiencing high memory usage and slow query performance. The administrator wants to identify the root cause. Which Amazon CloudWatch metric should be analyzed first?

Accepted Answer

SwapUsage. SwapUsage is the correct metric to analyze first because high swap usage indicates that the system is running out of physical memory, causing it to use disk-based swap space. This can directly lead to slow query performance due to increased I/O and memory pressure. The other metrics are less directly related: CPUUtilization may not reflect memory issues, NetworkIn is unrelated to memory, and DiskQueueDepth relates to disk I/O, not memory.

Answer

NetworkIn

Answer

CPUUtilization

Answer

DiskQueueDepth

Question 6

During a migration of an SAP system, the team notices that the source system uses a custom kernel parameter that is not supported on the target Amazon EC2 instance. What should the migration team do?

Accepted Answer

Consult the SAP on AWS documentation for equivalent parameter settings.. When a custom kernel parameter is not supported on the target EC2 instance, the recommended approach is to consult the SAP on AWS documentation for equivalent or alternative parameter settings that achieve the same effect within AWS's supported configurations. Option A is incorrect because disabling the parameter in the source before migration could affect the SAP system's performance or functionality during migration. Option B is incorrect because changing the EC2 instance type may not necessarily support the parameter, and it might introduce other compatibility issues. Option D is incorrect because proceeding with an unsupported kernel parameter could lead to system instability or failure on AWS.

Answer

Disable the kernel parameter in the source before migration.

Answer

Change the EC2 instance type to one that supports the parameter.

Answer

Keep the same kernel parameter and proceed with the migration.

Question 7

An SAP system on AWS is experiencing increased latency in database queries. The operations team suspects that the RDS for Oracle instance is hitting its maximum connections limit. Which CloudWatch metric should be monitored to confirm this?

Accepted Answer

DatabaseConnections. The DatabaseConnections metric in Amazon CloudWatch tracks the number of database sessions currently connected to the RDS for Oracle instance. When this metric approaches or reaches the value of the `max_connections` parameter (or the Oracle-specific `sessions` and `processes` limits), new connections are rejected, causing application-side latency as queries queue or fail. Monitoring this metric directly confirms whether the maximum connections limit is being hit.

Answer

CPUCreditBalance

Answer

SwapUsage

Answer

ReadIOPS

Question 8

Which TWO of the following are benefits of using SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) on AWS? (Choose 2.)

Accepted Answer

Supports replication across AWS Regions for disaster recovery. SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) supports asynchronous replication across AWS Regions, enabling disaster recovery by maintaining a secondary system in a different geographic region. This allows failover to the secondary site if the primary region becomes unavailable, meeting RPO and RTO requirements for cross-region DR scenarios.

Answer

Improves query performance by distributing workloads

Answer

Automatically scales storage based on database growth

Answer

Automatically load balances read queries between primary and secondary

Question 9

A company is migrating a multi-tier web application to AWS. The web tier uses sticky sessions. The application tier uses a shared session store. Which architecture ensures high availability and scalability?

Accepted Answer

Use an Application Load Balancer with sticky sessions and Amazon ElastiCache for session storage.. An Application Load Balancer (ALB) supports sticky sessions, and Amazon ElastiCache provides a scalable, low-latency, distributed session store that is shared across instances, ensuring high availability and scalability.
Option A is incorrect because storing sessions on each EC2 instance does not provide a shared session store; if an instance fails, its sessions are lost.
Option B is incorrect because while the Classic Load Balancer supports sticky sessions and RDS can be used as a session store, RDS is not optimized for high-throughput session data and the Classic Load Balancer lacks advanced features like path-based routing and is considered legacy.
Option D is incorrect because Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) and is not designed for session storage; S3 is object storage with higher latency, making it unsuitable for real-time session data.

Answer

Use an Application Load Balancer with sticky sessions enabled, and store sessions on each EC2 instance.

Answer

Use a Classic Load Balancer with sticky sessions and store sessions in RDS.

Answer

Use Amazon CloudFront with origin failover and store sessions in S3.

Question 10

A company runs SAP on AWS with a distributed system: an SAP Central Services (ASCS) instance, a primary application server (PAS), and additional dialog instances (DI). All instances are in a single Availability Zone. The company wants to implement high availability for the ASCS instance using a shared filesystem for the /sapmnt directory. The ASCS instance uses a single EBS volume for /sapmnt. The operations team plans to use a Network File System (NFS) solution to share /sapmnt between instances. Which approach should the team use to achieve a highly available shared filesystem?

Accepted Answer

Deploy Amazon EFS and mount it on all instances as /sapmnt.. Amazon EFS provides a managed NFS filesystem that is highly available and durable across multiple Availability Zones, eliminating the single point of failure. It can be mounted on multiple EC2 instances simultaneously, making it suitable for sharing /sapmnt. Option A is incorrect because Amazon FSx for Windows File Server is designed for Windows-based workloads, not Linux-based SAP systems. Option B is incorrect because instance store volumes are ephemeral and data is lost on instance stop/termination. Option C is incorrect because a single EBS volume cannot be attached to multiple instances simultaneously (except with a cluster filesystem like OCFS2, which is complex and not recommended for this use case).

Answer

Use Amazon FSx for Windows File Server to host the /sapmnt share.

Answer

Use an instance store volume on the ASCS instance and share it via NFS.

Answer

Create a secondary EBS volume and attach it to both the ASCS and PAS instances, then use a cluster-aware filesystem like OCFS2.

Question 11

An SAP administrator notices that the SAP HANA database is running on an EC2 instance with a single EBS volume for /hana/data and /hana/log. The system is experiencing high latency during write operations. What is the most cost-effective design change to improve performance?

Accepted Answer

Create separate EBS volumes for /hana/data and /hana/log, attaching them to the instance. SAP HANA requires separate EBS volumes for /hana/data and /hana/log to avoid I/O contention. When both directories share a single volume, write operations to the log (sequential) and data (random) compete for the same queue depth and bandwidth, causing high latency. Separating them allows each workload to use dedicated IOPS and throughput, which is the most cost-effective fix without upgrading to premium volume types.

Answer

Use an Instance Store volume for /hana/data

Answer

Modify the EBS volume to use Provisioned IOPS (io2) with higher IOPS

Answer

Increase the size of the existing EBS volume to gain more throughput

Question 12

An SAP administrator needs to configure high availability for SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP. They plan to use AWS services. Which combination of services is required?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EFS and Pacemaker on EC2. SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP high availability on AWS requires shared storage for the /sapmnt and /usr/sap/trans directories, which Amazon EFS provides via NFSv4, and a cluster manager like Pacemaker on EC2 to orchestrate failover between the primary and secondary application servers. This combination ensures that the SAP central services (ASCS and ERS) can fail over seamlessly in the event of an instance or availability zone failure.

Answer

AWS Global Accelerator and Auto Scaling

Answer

Elastic Load Balancing and Amazon Route 53

Answer

Amazon EBS Multi-Attach volumes

Question 13

An SAP application is experiencing high latency when writing to an Amazon EBS volume. The volume is a gp2 type attached to an m5.4xlarge instance. Which change would improve write performance?

Accepted Answer

Change the volume type to io2 and provision sufficient IOPS.. The gp2 volume's baseline performance of 3 IOPS per GiB (max 16,000 IOPS) is insufficient for the SAP application's write-intensive workload, causing high latency. Changing to io2 with provisioned IOPS ensures consistent, high-performance writes by decoupling IOPS from volume size, directly addressing the latency issue.

Answer

Increase the size of the gp2 volume to 1 TB.

Answer

Change the volume type to st1.

Answer

Enable EBS optimization on the EC2 instance.

Question 14

A company runs SAP on AWS and needs to ensure that the SAP application logs are centrally collected and analyzed for security incidents. Which AWS service should be used to collect and store the logs from EC2 instances?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Logs. Amazon CloudWatch Logs can collect and store application logs from EC2 instances using the unified CloudWatch agent. It provides centralized log management and can be used for security incident analysis. Option A (Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose) is for streaming data to destinations like S3 or Redshift, not primarily for log collection from instances. Option B (AWS CloudTrail) records API activity, not application logs. Option C (Amazon S3) can store logs but does not directly collect them from EC2 instances without additional services like CloudWatch Logs or Kinesis. Therefore, Amazon CloudWatch Logs is the correct service for collecting and storing SAP application logs from EC2 instances.

Answer

Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

Amazon S3

Question 15

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 16

An SAP system on AWS is using an Oracle database. The company wants to implement automated backups to Amazon S3. Which AWS service should be used to orchestrate the backup process?

Accepted Answer

AWS Backup. AWS Backup is the correct service because it provides a fully managed, policy-driven backup solution that can orchestrate backups for SAP workloads running on Amazon EC2 with Oracle databases. It integrates directly with Amazon S3 for storing backup data and supports custom backup scripts via the AWS Backup API or AWS Lambda, enabling automated, scheduled backups without manual intervention.

Answer

Amazon RDS for Oracle

Answer

Amazon S3 Lifecycle policies

Answer

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)

Question 17

A company is running a mission-critical SAP S/4HANA system on AWS in the us-east-1 region. The system uses a two-tier architecture with the SAP application server and HANA database on the same EC2 instance. The instance type is an r5.24xlarge with 12 x 2 TB gp3 EBS volumes striped using LVM. The HANA data volume is 10 TB. The company has a disaster recovery (DR) requirement with an RPO of 15 minutes and an RTO of 4 hours. The DR site must be in us-west-2. The company currently takes daily EBS snapshots of the data volume and copies them to us-west-2. However, they are not meeting the RPO. The operations team is considering implementing SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) asynchronously to the DR region. However, network latency between us-east-1 and us-west-2 averages 60 ms. The SAP HANA database has a heavy write workload, with average log writes of 500 MB/sec. The team is concerned that the replication may fall behind and cause data loss. What should the team do to meet the DR requirements while minimizing data loss?

Accepted Answer

Implement HSR asynchronously and also enable HANA log backups to an S3 bucket in us-west-2.. Combining asynchronous HANA System Replication (HSR) with HANA log backups to an S3 bucket in us-west-2 provides a dual-layer protection strategy. Asynchronous HSR will replicate log changes in near real-time, but given the 60 ms latency and 500 MB/sec write workload, it may fall behind; the log backups act as a safety net to capture any log data that hasn't been replicated yet, allowing recovery with minimal data loss while still meeting the 15-minute RPO.

Answer

Switch to synchronous replication to ensure zero data loss.

Answer

Increase the HANA log buffer size to reduce the frequency of log flushes, so that less data is sent over the network.

Answer

Use HSR with multiple replicas in us-west-2 to improve replication speed.

Question 18

An SAP HANA database is running on an r5.8xlarge instance. The administrator notices high swap usage and suspects memory pressure. Which AWS metric should be monitored to confirm memory utilization?

Accepted Answer

CWAgent namespace metrics. The CWAgent namespace metrics are correct because the CloudWatch agent, when installed on the EC2 instance, can capture detailed OS-level memory utilization metrics (such as `mem_used_percent` and `mem_available_percent`) that are not available in the default EC2 or EBS namespaces. This allows the administrator to directly confirm memory pressure causing high swap usage on the SAP HANA database.

Answer

AWS/Lambda namespace metrics

Answer

EC2 namespace metrics

Answer

EBS namespace metrics

Question 19

An SAP system on AWS is using an SAP HANA database. The database administrator wants to monitor memory usage and receive alerts when memory consumption exceeds 90%. Which THREE services can be used together to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS). Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) is correct because it provides a fully managed pub/sub messaging service that can deliver alerts (e.g., via email, SMS, or HTTP endpoints) when triggered by an Amazon CloudWatch Alarm. In this scenario, once the CloudWatch Alarm detects that memory usage exceeds 90%, it publishes to an SNS topic, which then sends the notification to the database administrator. This enables real-time alerting without requiring custom polling or additional infrastructure.

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon Inspector

Question 20

A company is migrating a legacy three-tier web application to AWS. The application uses a MySQL database and stores session data in the database. The company wants to minimize database load and improve scalability. Which TWO actions should the company take to achieve these goals?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon ElastiCache to store session data instead of the database.. Storing session data in the database creates unnecessary write load and latency. Amazon ElastiCache (Memcached or Redis) provides an in-memory key-value store that is ideal for transient session data, reducing database load and improving application scalability by offloading session management from the persistent MySQL layer.

Answer

Configure Amazon RDS Multi-AZ for high availability.

Answer

Use Auto Scaling for the web server tier to handle variable traffic.

Answer

Use Amazon RDS read replicas to offload read traffic from the primary database.