PAS-C01 Practice Exam 69 — 20 Questions

Question 1

A company runs SAP on AWS. During a maintenance window, the SAP application team needs to apply a kernel update that requires a reboot of the SAP application servers. The environment uses an Auto Scaling group for the application tier. What is the BEST approach to minimize downtime?

Accepted Answer

Terminate instances one at a time, allowing the Auto Scaling group to launch new instances with the updated configuration.. Option C is correct because terminating instances one at a time allows the Auto Scaling group to launch new instances with updated configuration, maintaining capacity and minimizing downtime. Option A is wrong because stopping instances suspends billing but does not trigger automatic replacement. Option B is wrong because detaching instances requires manual reattachment. Option D is wrong because doubling desired capacity temporarily increases costs and may not be necessary.

Answer

Stop all instances in the Auto Scaling group, apply the update, and start them again.

Answer

Detach all instances from the Auto Scaling group, apply the update, and reattach them.

Answer

Double the desired capacity of the Auto Scaling group, wait for new instances, then terminate old instances.

Question 2

An SAP system on AWS is experiencing performance degradation. Amazon CloudWatch metrics show high CPU utilization on the application server, but the database server (RDS) metrics are normal. The application team suspects a memory leak. Which action should the operations team take FIRST to confirm the issue?

Accepted Answer

Install the CloudWatch agent on the application server and enable memory metrics.. Option B is correct because CloudWatch cannot see inside the OS without the CloudWatch agent. Installing the agent and collecting memory metrics is the first step to confirm a memory leak. Option A is wrong because CloudWatch does not provide memory metrics by default. Option C is wrong because rebooting is disruptive and does not help diagnose. Option D is wrong because switching to a larger instance is a reactive fix, not diagnostic.

Answer

Review the existing CloudWatch CPU utilization and memory metrics for the application server.

Answer

Reboot the application server and monitor performance after reboot.

Answer

Increase the instance size of the application server to handle the load.

Question 3

A company runs SAP HANA on AWS. The operations team needs to automate the creation of AMI backups for the HANA database server. Which AWS service should they use to schedule and manage these backups?

Accepted Answer

AWS Backup. Option A is correct because AWS Backup is a managed backup service that can schedule AMI backups. Option B is wrong because Systems Manager can automate tasks but is not specifically for backup scheduling. Option C is wrong because CloudWatch Events can trigger Lambda but is not a backup service. Option D is wrong because S3 Lifecycle policies manage object lifecycle, not AMI creation.

Answer

Amazon S3 Lifecycle policies

Answer

AWS Systems Manager

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Events

Question 4

An SAP system on AWS uses a Multi-AZ RDS for SQL Server as the database. During a failover test, the application experienced a 2-minute outage. The application team wants to reduce this downtime. What should the operations team recommend?

Accepted Answer

Enable automatic failover handling in the application's JDBC connection string.. Option C is correct because enabling Multi-AZ with automatic failover in the JDBC connection string allows the application to automatically reconnect to the new primary without manual intervention. Option A is wrong because increasing instance size does not affect failover time. Option B is wrong because a different Multi-AZ configuration does not reduce failover time. Option D is wrong because RDS Proxy is not supported for SQL Server.

Answer

Increase the DB instance size to improve failover performance.

Answer

Configure Multi-AZ with SQL Server Mirroring instead of Always On Availability Groups.

Answer

Use Amazon RDS Proxy to manage connections.

Question 5

An SAP system on AWS is experiencing intermittent connectivity issues between the application servers and the HANA database. The network team has confirmed that the VPC and subnets are configured correctly. What should the operations team check NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Security group rules on the database server.. Option B is correct because security group rules for HANA database default deny inbound traffic; if not properly configured, they can block application traffic. Option A is wrong because NACLs are stateless and less likely to cause intermittent issues. Option C is wrong because route tables typically do not change. Option D is wrong because DNS resolution is not the likely cause of intermittent connectivity.

Answer

DNS resolution for the database endpoint.

Answer

VPC route tables for the application subnet.

Answer

Network ACLs on the database subnet.

Question 6

A company runs SAP on AWS and uses an Application Load Balancer (ALB) to distribute traffic to web dispatchers. The operations team notices that some requests are failing with 503 errors. What is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The target instances are failing health checks.. Option C is correct because 503 errors from an ALB indicate that the target instances are unhealthy or not responding. Option A is wrong because 503 errors are not caused by SSL certificate issues. Option B is wrong because security groups would cause connection timeouts, not 503. Option D is wrong because ALB capacity is automatically scaled.

Answer

The SSL certificate on the ALB has expired.

Answer

Security groups allow too much traffic.

Answer

The ALB is out of capacity.

Question 7

An SAP system on AWS uses a custom AMI for its application servers. The operations team needs to update the AMI to include a new security patch. What is the MOST efficient way to update all existing instances without downtime?

Accepted Answer

Create a new AMI version, update the Auto Scaling group's launch template, and perform a rolling update.. Option B is correct because using a launch template with a new AMI version and rolling update via Auto Scaling group minimizes downtime. Option A is wrong because patching each instance individually is manual and error-prone. Option C is wrong because stopping instances causes downtime. Option D is wrong because creating new instances manually is inefficient.

Answer

Stop all instances, apply the patch, create a new AMI, and start instances.

Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager to apply the patch to all running instances.

Answer

Create a new AMI, launch new instances manually, and terminate old ones.

Question 8

Which TWO actions should an operations team take to ensure high availability for SAP HANA in a single AWS Region?

Accepted Answer

Deploy SAP HANA in a Multi-AZ configuration using HANA System Replication.. Options A and D are correct. A: Multi-AZ deployment provides failover across Availability Zones. D: HANA System Replication with automatic failover ensures data consistency and failover. Option B is wrong because a single instance in one AZ does not provide HA. Option C is wrong because backups do not provide automatic failover. Option E is wrong because read replicas are for read scaling, not HA.

Answer

Create read replicas of the HANA database.

Answer

Configure automated backups to Amazon S3.

Answer

Use a single large EC2 instance in one Availability Zone.

Question 9

Which THREE metrics should an operations team monitor to detect performance issues in an SAP HANA database running on EC2?

Accepted Answer

CPU utilization. Options A, C, and D are correct. A: CPU utilization indicates compute pressure. C: Memory usage is critical for HANA as it is an in-memory database. D: Disk I/O indicates storage performance. Option B is wrong because network packets in/out is less relevant for HANA performance. Option E is wrong because swap usage should be minimal in HANA; high swap indicates memory pressure.

Answer

Network packets in/out

Answer

Swap usage

Question 10

Your SAP on AWS environment uses a central S3 bucket to store SAP transport files. The operations team reports that transport import fails intermittently. Which AWS service can be used to monitor and alert on S3 API call failures?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail. Option A is correct because CloudTrail logs S3 API calls. Option B is wrong because CloudWatch Metrics for S3 are limited. Option C is wrong because Config tracks configuration changes. Option D is wrong because Trusted Advisor provides best practice checks.

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Metrics

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 11

A company runs SAP ERP on AWS with a DR strategy using cross-region replication for SAP HANA. During a DR drill, the team discovers that the HANA database is not starting on the DR instance. Which configuration is most likely missing?

Accepted Answer

HANA system replication configuration with the correct 'PRIMARY' and 'SECONDARY' roles.. Option D is correct because the HANA system replication requires the correct HSR configuration. Option A is wrong because IAM roles are not required for HANA startup. Option B is wrong because CloudWatch agent is optional. Option C is wrong because EBS encryption is not required.

Answer

IAM roles for the DR instance to access S3.

Answer

EBS encryption on the DR volumes.

Answer

CloudWatch agent for logging.

Question 12

An SAP Basis team is troubleshooting a performance issue on an SAP HANA database running on AWS. The HANA index server is consuming high CPU. The team suspects that the underlying EC2 instance is throttled. Which CloudWatch metric should be checked to confirm CPU throttling?

Accepted Answer

CPUCreditBalance. Option B is correct because CPUCreditBalance indicates CPU throttling for burstable instances. Option A is wrong because CPUUtilization shows usage, not throttling. Option C is wrong because NetworkIn is not related. Option D is wrong because DiskReadOps is not related.

Answer

CPUUtilization

Answer

NetworkIn

Answer

DiskReadOps

Question 13

A company runs SAP on AWS and uses a Multi-AZ architecture. The SAP application servers are in an Auto Scaling group across two Availability Zones, and the database is an RDS for SAP HANA Multi-AZ DB instance. During a recent failover test, the database failover completed within 2 minutes, but the application servers took 10 minutes to reconnect to the database. Which action would minimize the application reconnection time?

Accepted Answer

Use an RDS Proxy to manage database connections from the application servers.. Option D is correct because using an RDS proxy minimizes connection disruptions by pooling and reusing database connections during failovers, reducing application reconnection time. Option A is wrong because shortening the health check grace period doesn't affect reconnection. Option B is wrong because increasing the number of application servers doesn't address reconnection logic. Option C is wrong because an RDS Multi-AZ failover already happens automatically within minutes.

Answer

Reduce the health check grace period on the Auto Scaling group.

Answer

Configure the SAP application to use the RDS Multi-AZ automatic failover endpoint.

Answer

Increase the minimum number of application servers in the Auto Scaling group.

Question 14

An SAP system administrator notices that nightly SAP HANA backups to Amazon S3 are failing intermittently with 'Access Denied' errors. The backups are initiated by an AWS Lambda function that uses an IAM role. The role has a policy that grants s3:PutObject on the backup bucket. Which additional IAM action is most likely required to resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

s3:PutObjectAcl. Option C is correct because S3 bucket policies often require s3:PutObjectAcl for cross-account access or when the bucket owner is different from the uploader. Option A is wrong because s3:ListBucket is for listing objects, not uploading. Option B is wrong because s3:GetObject is for reading, not writing. Option D is wrong because s3:DeleteObject is for removing objects, not uploading.

Answer

s3:ListBucket

Answer

s3:DeleteObject

Answer

s3:GetObject

Question 15

An SAP Basis administrator needs to monitor the memory usage of an SAP HANA database running on an EC2 instance. Which AWS service should be used to collect and visualize custom memory metrics from the OS?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch with the CloudWatch Agent. Option A is correct because CloudWatch Agent can collect custom metrics from the OS and send them to CloudWatch. Option B is wrong because AWS Config is for resource configuration tracking. Option C is wrong because Systems Manager Inventory collects software inventory, not real-time memory metrics. Option D is wrong because CloudTrail logs API activity, not OS metrics.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Systems Manager Inventory

Answer

AWS Config

Question 16

Refer to the exhibit. An SAP HANA instance is running on an EC2 instance. The volume `/dev/sdf` is used for HANA data. The operations team needs to increase the disk size for HANA data without downtime. Which action should they take?

Accepted Answer

Modify the EBS volume size while the instance is running.. Option B is correct. Modifying the EBS volume size while the instance is running is supported for most volume types. Option A is wrong because stopping the instance is unnecessary. Option C is wrong because launching a new instance would require migration. Option D is wrong because adding a new volume and moving data requires downtime.

Answer

Launch a new instance with a larger volume and migrate HANA data.

Answer

Stop the instance, modify the volume size, and start the instance.

Answer

Add a new EBS volume to the instance and move HANA data to the new volume.

Question 17

An SAP administrator needs to ensure that all EC2 instances in the SAP landscape have the correct patches and configurations. Which AWS service can be used to automate OS patch management?

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager. Option D is correct because AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager automates patching. Option A is wrong because OpsWorks is for Chef/Puppet. Option B is wrong because CloudFormation is for infrastructure. Option C is wrong because Config is for compliance.

Answer

AWS CloudFormation

Answer

AWS OpsWorks

Answer

AWS Config

Question 18

An SAP administrator is troubleshooting a failed backup of SAP HANA to Amazon S3. The backup is initiated by an SAP HANA BACKUP command using the S3 backint agent. The error log shows 'HTTP 403 Forbidden' when the agent tries to upload to the S3 bucket. The bucket policy allows s3:PutObject from the VPC endpoint. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The VPC endpoint policy for S3 does not grant the required actions to the IAM role.. Option C is correct because VPC endpoint policies are separate from bucket policies and often need to grant access explicitly. Option A is wrong because the bucket already exists. Option B is wrong because encryption settings would cause different errors (e.g., Access Denied if KMS key is missing). Option D is wrong because the error is 403, not timeout.

Answer

The S3 bucket does not exist.

Answer

The S3 bucket is not in the same AWS Region as the EC2 instance.

Answer

The S3 bucket uses server-side encryption with AWS KMS (SSE-KMS) and the IAM role lacks kms:GenerateDataKey.

Question 19

A company runs SAP on AWS and wants to monitor operating system metrics such as memory usage, disk space, and process status using Amazon CloudWatch. Which agent configuration is required on the SAP application and database servers to send these metrics to CloudWatch?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Agent. Option B is correct because the CloudWatch Agent can collect memory, disk, and process metrics and send them to CloudWatch. Option A is incorrect because the SSM Agent is for management, not metrics. Option C is incorrect because the X-Ray daemon is for tracing. Option D is incorrect because the EC2 launch agent is for initialization.

Answer

AWS X-Ray Daemon

Answer

EC2 Launch Agent

Answer

AWS Systems Manager Agent

Question 20

A company is running an SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance with a single EBS volume for /hana/data. The performance team reports high write latency during peak hours. Which change would most effectively reduce write latency without compromising data durability?

Accepted Answer

Configure multiple EBS volumes in a striped RAID 0 array for the /hana/data directory. Option B is correct because using multiple EBS volumes with striping increases I/O throughput and reduces latency by distributing writes. Option A (increasing volume size) may not improve latency. Option C (provisioned IOPS) could help but is more expensive and less effective than striping for this scenario. Option D (moving to GP2) is a downgrade in performance.

Answer

Switch the EBS volume type to Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1) with high IOPS

Answer

Increase the size of the EBS volume to gain more baseline IOPS

Answer

Move the /hana/data directory to a General Purpose SSD (gp2) volume