PAS-C01 Mock Exam 80 — 25 Questions

Question 1

A company is planning to run SAP HANA on AWS and needs to ensure that the instance is optimally placed for low latency between the application and database tiers. Which AWS feature should be used?

Accepted Answer

Cluster placement group. A cluster placement group is the correct choice because it provides low-latency, high-throughput network connectivity by placing instances in a single Availability Zone with non-blocking, fully bisectioned bandwidth. For SAP HANA, where the application and database tiers require sub-millisecond latency for optimal performance, a cluster placement group ensures that all instances are physically close together, minimizing network hops and jitter.

Answer

Application Load Balancer

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VPC endpoint

Answer

Auto Scaling group

Question 2

An SAP system on AWS uses an Oracle database. The administrator wants to automate the creation of daily backups and retain them for 30 days. Which THREE AWS services can be used together to achieve this? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Amazon S3 lifecycle policies. Amazon S3 lifecycle policies (A) are correct because they can be used to automatically transition backup data to lower-cost storage tiers (e.g., S3 Standard-IA or S3 Glacier) and expire objects after a specified retention period (30 days). This enables cost-effective, automated management of daily backups without manual intervention.

Answer

AWS Lambda

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Events

Question 3

A company is running a business-critical SAP HANA database on an m5.24xlarge EC2 instance. The database stores 3 TB of data on EBS gp3 volumes. The system experiences high latency during peak hours. Which configuration change would most effectively reduce latency without increasing costs significantly?

Accepted Answer

Migrate the EBS volumes to io2 Block Express volumes with the same capacity.. Migrating to io2 Block Express volumes provides consistent, sub-millisecond latency and higher IOPS performance than gp3, which is essential for reducing high latency in a business-critical SAP HANA database during peak hours. This change addresses the latency issue without significantly increasing costs, as io2 Block Express offers a cost-effective balance of performance and durability for mission-critical workloads.

Answer

Increase the Provisioned IOPS of the gp3 volumes to the maximum supported.

Answer

Move the database to a larger instance type like x1e.32xlarge with more memory.

Answer

Increase the gp3 volume size to 4 TB to gain more baseline IOPS.

Question 4

An SAP system on AWS is using Amazon EBS volumes for the database. The company wants to take crash-consistent snapshots of the entire database volume set. Which approach is recommended?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Backup with pre- and post-scripts for volume groups. AWS Backup with pre- and post-scripts for volume groups is the recommended approach because it orchestrates crash-consistent snapshots across multiple EBS volumes by freezing the application (e.g., SAP HANA) and flushing I/O before the snapshot, then unfreezing after. This ensures all volumes are captured at the same point in time without downtime, which is critical for SAP databases requiring consistency across the entire volume set.

Answer

Stop the instance, take snapshots, then restart

Answer

Use EBS Multi-Attach to attach volumes to a backup instance

Answer

Take snapshots of each volume individually at the same time

Question 5

Which TWO of the following are best practices for securing an SAP system on AWS? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Use security groups to restrict inbound traffic to SAP application ports. Security groups act as a virtual firewall for EC2 instances, allowing you to control inbound and outbound traffic. Restricting inbound traffic to only the necessary SAP application ports (e.g., 3200 for SAP GUI, 443 for SAP Web Dispatcher) minimizes the attack surface and is a fundamental security best practice.

Answer

Store database credentials in plaintext in application configuration files

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Disable AWS CloudTrail to reduce logs

Answer

Allow all inbound traffic from 0.0.0.0/0 for easy access

Question 6

A company is deploying SAP S/4HANA on AWS. They need to choose the appropriate storage for the database volume to meet high IOPS and low latency requirements. Which AWS storage service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes. Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes are designed for mission-critical SAP HANA workloads, offering up to 256,000 IOPS per volume and sub-millisecond latency. They provide 99.999% durability and meet the high-performance requirements for SAP S/4HANA database volumes on AWS.

Answer

Amazon EFS

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Amazon S3

Answer

Amazon EBS gp3 volumes

Question 7

A company wants to automate the creation of an SAP application server in AWS. Which AWS service is best suited for this task?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudFormation. AWS CloudFormation is best suited for automating the creation of an SAP application server because it allows you to define the entire infrastructure as code (IaC) using a template (JSON or YAML). This enables consistent, repeatable provisioning of EC2 instances, security groups, storage, and networking configurations required for SAP, and supports integration with AWS Systems Manager for post-deployment configuration.

Answer

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

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AWS CodeDeploy

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AWS OpsWorks

Question 8

An SAP HANA database is running on an EC2 instance with multiple EBS volumes for data, log, and shared storage. The administrator needs to ensure that the volumes are backed up consistently to avoid data corruption. Which THREE measures should be taken? (Select THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Take snapshots of all volumes simultaneously using the EBS multi-volume snapshot feature.. Options B, C, and D are correct. Option B: Using the EBS multi-volume snapshot feature allows snapshots of all volumes to be taken simultaneously, ensuring crash consistency. Option C: Taking snapshots in the correct order (data volumes first, then log volumes) is important for SAP HANA to maintain transactional consistency. Option D: Freezing the filesystem with xfs_freeze (or equivalent) before taking snapshots ensures filesystem consistency and prevents data corruption. Option A is incorrect because although AWS Backup provides application-consistent snapshots, the question asks for measures the administrator should take directly; the recommended practice for SAP HANA on EC2 with EBS is to use the EBS multi-volume snapshot feature in conjunction with filesystem freeze and proper ordering. Option E is incorrect because stopping the instance causes downtime and is not necessary if using the other measures.

Answer

Use the application-consistent snapshot feature of AWS Backup with pre/post scripts.

Answer

Stop the EC2 instance before taking snapshots.

Question 9

An SAP system on AWS is configured with an Application Load Balancer (ALB) for health checks. The ALB marks all targets as unhealthy. The health check path is /sap/public/health.html, and the SAP Web Dispatcher is configured to serve this file. What is the most likely cause of the health check failure?

Accepted Answer

The security group for the Web Dispatcher does not allow traffic from the ALB.. ALB health checks originate from private IP addresses within the VPC. If the SAP Web Dispatcher's security group does not allow inbound traffic from the ALB's security group, the health check requests will be blocked. Path or port issues would also cause failures, but the most common cause is security group misconfiguration.

Answer

The health check path is incorrect.

Answer

The health check port is wrong.

Answer

The ALB is in a different VPC.

Question 10

A company is using SAP HANA in a multi-node scale-out configuration on AWS. The operations team needs to automate the patching of the operating system on all nodes with minimal downtime. Which approach is most suitable?

Accepted Answer

Use a rolling patching strategy: patch one node at a time after isolating it from the HANA cluster.. A rolling patching strategy, where one node is isolated from the HANA cluster, patched, then reintegrated before moving to the next, minimizes downtime. Option D is correct because it avoids full cluster outage. Option A is wrong because stopping all nodes causes complete downtime. Option B is wrong because creating new instances from a patched AMI requires data reload and may not be seamless for a scale-out HANA cluster. Option C is wrong because applying patches to all nodes simultaneously can cause cluster instability or downtime due to lack of coordination.

Answer

Stop all HANA nodes, patch the OS on each node, then start them all together.

Answer

Create new EC2 instances from a patched AMI and terminate the old ones.

Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager to apply patches to all nodes simultaneously.

Question 11

An organization wants to ensure that its SAP HANA database backups are stored in a separate AWS Region for disaster recovery. The backups are currently stored in Amazon S3 in the primary Region. Which AWS service should be used to replicate the backups to another Region automatically?

Accepted Answer

Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR).. Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) is the correct choice because it automatically replicates objects from an S3 bucket in one AWS Region to a bucket in another Region, meeting the requirement for storing SAP HANA database backups in a separate Region for disaster recovery. CRR operates asynchronously at the object level, ensuring that backups are continuously copied without manual intervention, and it supports the same storage classes and encryption mechanisms as the source bucket.

Answer

AWS Storage Gateway with volume gateway.

Answer

AWS Backup with a cross-region backup plan.

Answer

Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration.

Question 12

Refer to the exhibit. An SAP HANA database backup fails with the error shown. The backup target is an EFS file system mounted at /backup. The EC2 instance has the appropriate IAM role to access EFS. What is the MOST likely cause of this error?

Accepted Answer

The SAP HANA database user does not have write permissions on the backup directory.. The error 'Permission denied' indicates that the SAP HANA user (e.g., <sid>adm) does not have write permissions to the backup directory on the EFS file system. Option A is wrong because the error is not about disk space. Option C is wrong because EFS does not have IOPS limits like EBS. Option D is wrong because the IAM role is for accessing EFS, but file permissions are separate.

Answer

The IAM role attached to the EC2 instance does not have permissions to write to EFS.

Answer

The EFS file system has insufficient IOPS for the backup operation.

Answer

The EFS file system is out of storage capacity.

Question 13

A company is migrating an SAP system to AWS and needs to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) instance. Which architecture should be used to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Use a cluster of EC2 instances across two Availability Zones with shared storage and a cluster manager.. SAP Central Services (ASCS) requires a high-availability cluster that can fail over between physical hosts while maintaining shared storage and a quorum mechanism. Deploying a cluster of EC2 instances across two Availability Zones with shared storage (e.g., Amazon EFS or FSx for NetApp ONTAP) and a cluster manager (e.g., Pacemaker) meets this requirement by providing automatic failover and data consistency. This architecture aligns with SAP's official high-availability guidelines for AWS, which mandate multi-AZ deployment to tolerate an entire AZ failure.

Answer

Deploy the ASCS on a single large EC2 instance with a Multi-Attach EBS volume.

Answer

Use an Auto Scaling group with a launch configuration for ASCS.

Answer

Deploy two EC2 instances in the same Availability Zone with a replicated file system.

Question 14

A company is running SAP NetWeaver on AWS and wants to implement a high-availability solution for the SAP Central Services (ASCS). Which AWS service can be used to manage the virtual IP address for failover?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Route 53 with failover routing. Amazon Route 53 with failover routing is the correct choice because it can manage a virtual IP address (VIP) for SAP Central Services (ASCS) failover by using DNS health checks to detect ASCS failure and automatically update the DNS record to point to the healthy secondary instance. This aligns with the SAP on AWS high-availability pattern where a DNS-based VIP is preferred over traditional floating IPs, as AWS does not support layer 2 VIP failover across Availability Zones.

Answer

AWS Global Accelerator

Answer

Elastic Load Balancer (ELB)

Answer

Elastic IP address reassignment

Question 15

An SAP environment uses Amazon CloudWatch to monitor EC2 instances. The operations team wants to receive a notification when the CPU utilization exceeds 90% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Alarms with Amazon SNS.. Amazon CloudWatch Alarms can monitor a metric (like CPUUtilization) and trigger an action when the metric crosses a defined threshold for a specified number of consecutive evaluation periods. By setting the alarm to evaluate CPU utilization > 90% for 5 consecutive minutes (e.g., 5 periods of 1 minute each) and configuring the alarm action to publish to an Amazon SNS topic, the operations team receives a notification directly. This is the native, serverless way to react to CloudWatch metrics without additional infrastructure.

Answer

AWS Config.

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Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail.

Question 16

An SAP system on AWS is experiencing high CPU ready time on the application server VMs. Which configuration change is most likely to reduce CPU contention?

Accepted Answer

Move the instance to a dedicated host. CPU ready time indicates that the VM is ready to process instructions but is waiting for the physical CPU to become available, which is a symptom of CPU overcommitment on the host. Moving the instance to a dedicated host eliminates resource contention with other AWS customers' VMs by providing the instance with exclusive access to the physical CPU cores, thereby reducing or eliminating CPU ready time.

Answer

Increase the number of vCPUs assigned to the instance

Answer

Change instance tenancy to default

Answer

Increase the instance memory

Question 17

Which TWO AWS services can be used to automate the backup of SAP HANA databases? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

AWS Backup. AWS Backup is a fully managed backup service that supports SAP HANA databases on Amazon EC2 through the AWS Backup Gateway and integration with the SAP HANA Backint agent. It provides centralized backup management, automated scheduling, and lifecycle policies, making it a correct choice for automating SAP HANA backups.

Answer

Amazon RDS

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AWS Lambda

Answer

AWS Storage Gateway

Question 18

Which TWO options are valid methods for encrypting data at rest in an SAP HANA database running on Amazon EBS? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Enable SAP HANA native encryption for the database.. SAP HANA provides native encryption capabilities that encrypt data at rest within the database itself, including data files, log files, and backups. This encryption is managed by SAP HANA's own key management system and operates independently of the underlying storage layer, making it a valid method for encrypting data at rest on Amazon EBS.

Answer

Use SSL/TLS connections to the database.

Answer

Use AWS KMS to encrypt the database schema.

Answer

Store database files in Amazon S3 with SSE-S3.

Question 19

Which THREE services can be used together to implement a disaster recovery solution for SAP S/4HANA on AWS with a recovery time objective (RTO) of less than 1 hour and a recovery point objective (RPO) of less than 15 minutes?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA System Replication across regions.. SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) across AWS regions provides synchronous or near-synchronous replication of HANA databases, enabling an RPO of less than 15 minutes and an RTO under 1 hour when combined with automated failover. This is the primary mechanism for achieving low RPO/RTO in SAP S/4HANA disaster recovery on AWS.

Answer

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for ongoing replication.

Answer

Amazon S3 Glacier for long-term backups.

Question 20

A company is migrating an SAP system to AWS using the SAP DMO (Database Migration Option) with system move. Which TWO prerequisites must be met before starting the migration?

Accepted Answer

The target EC2 instances and storage must be prepared in advance.. SAP DMO requires that the source system is on a supported SAP NetWeaver release and that the target AWS infrastructure (EC2, storage) is prepared. The source database does not need to be stopped; DMO can run online. A separate AWS account is not a prerequisite. A direct network connection is recommended but not strictly required.

Answer

A separate AWS account must be used for the target system.

Answer

The source database must be stopped during the entire migration.

Answer

A VPN or Direct Connect connection must be established.