PAS-C01 Mock Exam 85 — 25 Questions

Question 1

A company runs a critical SAP HANA database on an m5.24xlarge EC2 instance. The operations team notices that the database performance degrades during peak hours. Which AWS service should be used to identify whether the instance is experiencing CPU throttling due to CPU credit exhaustion?

Accepted Answer

Use CloudWatch to monitor the CPUUtilization metric.. Option B is correct because T2/T3 instances use CPU credits, but m5 instances are dedicated performance instances and do not use CPU credits. However, the question tests if the candidate knows that m5 instances do not have CPU credit concepts; thus the correct answer is to check CloudWatch metrics for CPU Utilization, which directly measures CPU usage. Option A is wrong because m5 instances do not have CPU credit metrics. Option C is wrong because CloudTrail logs API calls, not performance metrics. Option D is wrong because Trusted Advisor gives best-practice recommendations, not real-time CPU metrics.

Answer

Use CloudTrail to review the EC2 instance launch configuration.

Answer

Use AWS Trusted Advisor to check for instance performance issues.

Answer

Use CloudWatch to monitor the CPUCreditBalance metric.

Question 2

An SAP administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue where the SAP application is slow. The administrator suspects that the EBS volumes are not meeting performance requirements. Which THREE metrics should be examined in Amazon CloudWatch to confirm this? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

VolumeQueueLength. Options B, C, and D are correct. VolumeReadBytes and VolumeWriteBytes measure throughput, and VolumeQueueLength indicates pending I/O requests. Option A is not correct because BurstBalance is for t2/t3 instances, not EBS. Option E is not correct because CPUCreditBalance is for CPU credits.

Answer

CPUCreditBalance

Answer

BurstBalance

Question 3

An SAP administrator is troubleshooting a network connectivity issue between an SAP application server and an SAP HANA database, both running on EC2 in the same VPC. The security groups allow traffic on port 3xx15 and 3xx17. Which TWO steps should the administrator take to diagnose the problem?

Accepted Answer

Check the route tables to ensure the subnets can communicate.. Options B and D are correct. Verifying network ACLs is important because they can block traffic even if security groups allow it. Checking route tables ensures that subnets are properly connected. Option A is wrong because VPC Flow Logs are useful for analysis but not the first step. Option C is wrong because NACLs are stateless and need both inbound and outbound rules. Option E is wrong because internet gateway is not needed for internal traffic.

Answer

Check that the security groups have outbound rules that allow return traffic.

Answer

Ensure the internet gateway is attached to the VPC.

Answer

Enable VPC Flow Logs and analyze logs for dropped packets.

Question 4

An SAP system administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue on an SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) system running on AWS. The system uses an Oracle database on an EC2 instance with EBS volumes. Users report that some transactions are slow, especially during month-end closing. The administrator checks CloudWatch metrics and notices that the EBS volume read latency is high (average 20 ms) and the queue depth is consistently 0. The volume type is gp2 with 3000 IOPS. The administrator suspects the volume is not meeting the IOPS demand. What should the administrator do to resolve this issue?

Accepted Answer

Increase the EBS volume size to increase the baseline IOPS. Option D is correct because increasing the volume size increases baseline IOPS for gp2. Option A is wrong as switching to gp3 may help but not directly address queue depth. Option B is wrong as throughput is not the issue. Option C is wrong as increasing IOPS without volume size increase is not possible for gp2.

Answer

Switch the volume type from gp2 to gp3

Answer

Increase the volume throughput to 250 MB/s

Answer

Enable EBS optimization on the EC2 instance

Question 5

A company runs SAP on AWS and wants to automate the monitoring of SAP system health. Which TWO AWS services can be used together to achieve this? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

AWS Lambda. Option A and C are correct. CloudWatch can collect custom metrics from SAP, and Lambda can process and act on those metrics. Option B is not correct because Config is for compliance and configuration tracking. Option D is not correct because EC2 Auto Scaling is for scaling, not monitoring. Option E is not correct because SQS is a queue service.

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling

Answer

Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)

Question 6

A company runs SAP HANA on AWS using a multi-node scale-out configuration. During a routine maintenance window, the administrator needs to apply an HANA database software update. What is the BEST practice to minimize downtime?

Accepted Answer

Perform a rolling update by updating one node at a time while keeping the system operational.. Option C is correct because HANA scale-out supports rolling updates, allowing nodes to be updated one by one with minimal downtime. Option A is wrong because stopping all services causes full downtime. Option B is wrong because using HSR failover is complex and may cause data inconsistency if not properly managed. Option D is wrong because creating a new cluster and migrating is not efficient for a minor update.

Answer

Use HANA System Replication to fail over to a standby system, then update the primary.

Answer

Stop all HANA services, apply the update to all nodes, then restart.

Answer

Create a new HANA cluster with the updated version and migrate data.

Question 7

An SAP administrator is troubleshooting an issue where SAP application servers are unable to connect to the SAP HANA database. The database is running on an EC2 instance in a private subnet. The application servers are in a different VPC connected via VPC peering. The security group for the database instance allows TCP port 3$15$13 from the application server security group. Which additional configuration is MOST likely required?

Accepted Answer

Enable DNS resolution for the VPC peering connection.. Option C is correct because VPC peering does not automatically resolve DNS hostnames between VPCs. The application servers must resolve the database hostname to the private IP of the database instance. Option A is wrong because VPC peering does not support transitive routing, but that's not relevant here. Option B is wrong because NACLs are stateless and must allow return traffic, but the issue is DNS resolution. Option D is wrong because the security group rule already allows the port.

Answer

Modify the security group to allow traffic from the application server subnet CIDR.

Answer

Update the route tables to add a route to the database subnet.

Answer

Add a rule to the network ACL to allow inbound traffic on port 3$15$13.

Question 8

A company is planning to migrate its SAP workloads to AWS. Which THREE AWS services are commonly used to set up a secure network connectivity between on-premises and AWS? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

AWS Transit Gateway. Options A, B, and C are correct. AWS VPN, Direct Connect, and Transit Gateway are used for hybrid connectivity. Option D is not correct because VPC Peering is for VPC-to-VPC, not on-premises. Option E is not correct because Client VPN is for individual clients.

Answer

VPC Peering

Answer

AWS Client VPN

Question 9

A company runs SAP ERP on AWS. The system includes a primary application server and a secondary application server for high availability. The secondary server is not receiving updates from the primary. Which THREE steps should the administrator take to investigate?

Accepted Answer

Verify network connectivity between the primary and secondary servers using ping or telnet on SAP ports.. Options B, C, and D are correct. Checking the SAP enqueue replication status (B) verifies that locks are being replicated. Reviewing the SAP message server logs (C) can show communication errors. Verifying network connectivity between servers (D) is fundamental. Option A is wrong because the SAP Gateway is not directly related to replication. Option E is wrong because the secondary server should not be restarted without investigation.

Answer

Restart the secondary application server to force a resync.

Answer

Check the SAP Gateway service status on the primary server.

Question 10

A company runs SAP ERP on AWS with a multi-AZ deployment. The SAP application tier uses Auto Scaling groups with a custom AMI. After a recent patching of the AMI, the new instances fail to start the SAP application services. What should the administrator do to ensure that the new AMI correctly starts SAP services?

Accepted Answer

Modify the Auto Scaling group launch configuration to include a user data script that starts SAP services. Using user data scripts to start SAP services ensures that new instances automatically start SAP correctly regardless of AMI changes.

Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Run Command to start SAP services on running instances

Answer

Configure the SAP service to start via a cron job on the AMI

Answer

Create a new AMI with SAP services set to auto-start and update the Auto Scaling group

Question 11

An SAP Basis administrator needs to apply an OS-level security patch to a fleet of SAP EC2 instances running Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The instances are part of an Auto Scaling group. Which approach is the MOST efficient and minimizes downtime?

Accepted Answer

Create a new AMI with the patch applied, update the launch template, and perform a rolling update via Auto Scaling.. Option A is correct because using a new AMI with the patch and launching a new instance via Auto Scaling ensures that the new instance is patched before replacing the old one. Option B is wrong because applying patches via Systems Manager to running instances may cause downtime. Option C is wrong because stopping and patching each instance causes downtime. Option D is wrong because creating an AMI from a patched instance and updating the launch configuration is similar to A but more manual.

Answer

Create a custom AMI and manually terminate each instance to launch new ones.

Answer

Stop all instances, apply the patch using a script, and restart them.

Answer

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

Question 12

A company is running an SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance. The operations team notices that the SAP application is responding slowly during peak hours. CloudWatch metrics show high CPU utilization and increased swap usage. Which combination of actions should the team take to resolve the performance issue?

Accepted Answer

Resize the EC2 instance to a larger instance type with more vCPUs and memory.. Option C is correct because increasing memory reduces swap usage, and increasing CPU capacity addresses high CPU utilization. Option A is wrong because vertical scaling is often the simplest approach for a single HANA instance. Option B is wrong because adding more EBS volumes does not address CPU or memory. Option D is wrong because changing instance type to memory-optimized is the correct approach, not compute-optimized.

Answer

Enable Auto Scaling for the EC2 instance to automatically add more instances.

Answer

Change the instance type to a compute-optimized instance to improve CPU performance.

Answer

Add more EBS volumes and increase the number of read replicas.

Question 13

Your company runs an SAP ERP system on AWS. The SAP application servers are in an Auto Scaling group across two Availability Zones. The SAP HANA database runs on a single EC2 instance with multiple EBS volumes. Recently, the database instance experienced a failure due to an underlying hardware issue, and you had to recover from an EBS snapshot. The recovery took longer than expected, and management wants to reduce the recovery time objective (RTO). What should you do to achieve a lower RTO for the HANA database?

Accepted Answer

Set up SAP HANA System Replication to a secondary instance in a different Availability Zone. A standby HANA instance in a different AZ with replication allows for faster failover, reducing RTO. Option B is the correct action.

Answer

Create more frequent EBS snapshots and store them in Amazon S3

Answer

Increase the size of the EBS volumes and use Provisioned IOPS

Answer

Use an Auto Scaling group for the database instance

Question 14

An SAP system is experiencing high disk I/O latency. The operations team checks the Amazon CloudWatch metrics and finds that the Average Queue Length for the EBS volumes is consistently above the recommended threshold. Which action should be taken to address this issue?

Accepted Answer

Increase the provisioned IOPS for the EBS volumes.. Option A is correct because increasing IOPS reduces queue length. Option B is wrong because increasing volume size may not increase IOPS if gp2 volumes are used (size affects burst credits). Option C is wrong because converting to st1 is for throughput, not IOPS. Option D is wrong because enabling encryption does not affect performance.

Answer

Change the volume type to Throughput Optimized HDD (st1).

Answer

Enable EBS encryption to improve I/O performance.

Answer

Increase the volume size to improve I/O performance.

Question 15

An SAP Basis administrator needs to monitor the health of SAP application servers running on EC2. The administrator wants to receive alerts when a server becomes unreachable or when critical SAP processes stop. Which AWS service should be used to create a custom dashboard and set up alarms?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch. Option B is correct because CloudWatch can monitor EC2 instances and create alarms based on custom metrics, including process status. Option A is wrong because CloudTrail is for auditing API calls. Option C is wrong because Config is for resource compliance. Option D is wrong because Trusted Advisor provides best-practice checks but not custom monitoring.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 16

A multinational company runs SAP on AWS with a complex landscape including development, quality assurance, and production environments. The production SAP HANA database is running on an r5.8xlarge instance with 3.5 TB of data on EBS gp3 volumes. The operations team has been asked to implement a disaster recovery (DR) strategy that can recover the system in another AWS Region within 4 hours. The maximum acceptable data loss is 30 minutes. The current backup strategy uses daily EBS snapshots stored in the same Region. Which approach should the team take to meet the DR requirements?

Accepted Answer

Take EBS snapshots every 30 minutes and copy them to the DR Region using cross-Region snapshot copy. In the DR Region, have pre-provisioned EC2 instances and EBS volumes ready to attach the restored snapshots. Cross-Region replication of EBS snapshots and restoring in the DR Region meets the RTO of 4 hours and RPO of 30 minutes if snapshots are taken every 30 minutes. Option B is correct.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to schedule daily backups and copy them to the DR Region

Answer

Set up a pilot light environment in the DR Region with a HANA instance replicating via log shipping

Answer

Configure SAP HANA System Replication across Regions using a VPN connection

Question 17

An SAP system administrator notices that the SAP Central Services (ASCS) instance on an EC2 instance has failed. The instance is still running, but the ASCS service is unresponsive. What is the MOST efficient way to restore the ASCS service without affecting the SAP application?

Accepted Answer

Restart the ASCS service using SAP MMC or sapcontrol.. Option B is correct because restarting the ASCS service via SAP MMC is the quickest and least impactful method. Option A is wrong because rebooting the instance takes longer and may affect other services. Option C is wrong because restoring from backup is time-consuming and unnecessary. Option D is wrong because failing over to the secondary node requires a complete environment and may introduce complexity if not already configured.

Answer

Manually fail over the ASCS to the secondary node in the cluster.

Answer

Reboot the EC2 instance hosting the ASCS.

Answer

Restore the ASCS instance from the most recent AMI backup.

Question 18

A company runs SAP Business Suite on AWS. The SAP application servers are behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The operations team notices that occasionally, some requests fail with HTTP 503 errors. The team checks the ALB and finds that the target group has healthy instances. The SAP application logs show no errors. What is the most likely cause of the 503 errors?

Accepted Answer

The ALB connection draining timeout is set too low, causing requests to be routed to instances that are being de-registered.. Option A is correct. If the ALB connection draining timeout is too short, the ALB may send requests to instances that are being de-registered, resulting in 503 errors. Option B is wrong because if instances were unhealthy, the ALB would not route traffic to them. Option C is wrong because SSL issues would cause other errors, not necessarily 503. Option D is wrong because security group misconfigurations would typically cause connection timeouts, not 503 errors.

Answer

The security groups for the application servers do not allow traffic from the ALB.

Answer

The SSL certificate on the ALB has expired.

Answer

The target group health checks are misconfigured, marking instances as healthy when they are not.

Question 19

A company runs SAP S/4HANA on AWS. The environment includes an SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance with multiple EBS volumes for data, log, and backup. The backup strategy uses AWS Backup to create daily snapshots of all EBS volumes. During a disaster recovery test, the team discovers that the snapshots are not crash-consistent and the database cannot be restored to a consistent state. The backup window is set to 2 AM daily. What should the team do to ensure crash-consistent backups?

Accepted Answer

Configure AWS Backup to create multi-volume crash-consistent snapshots for the instance.. Option B is correct. To achieve crash consistency across multiple EBS volumes attached to a single instance, the volumes should be snapshotted together using the same snapshot request. AWS Backup can be configured to create multi-volume snapshots. Option A is wrong because stopping the instance causes downtime. Option C is wrong because individual snapshots are not crash-consistent across volumes. Option D is wrong because HANA backup to S3 does not address the EBS snapshot consistency issue.

Answer

Use SAP HANA backup to S3 instead of EBS snapshots for database backups.

Answer

Take individual EBS snapshots of each volume sequentially within the backup window.

Answer

Stop the EC2 instance before the backup window and start it after the snapshots complete.

Question 20

Which THREE factors should be considered when planning a recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO) for an SAP system on AWS?

Accepted Answer

Storage type (EBS vs. instance store). RPO is determined by backup frequency and replication lag; RTO is affected by instance size and storage type; cross-region replication can help but RTO depends on failover time.

Answer

AWS Region and Availability Zone

Answer

Number of SAP users