PAS-C01 Mock Exam 87 — 25 Questions

Question 1

A company runs SAP S/4HANA on AWS in a single region with a multi-AZ setup. The SAP HANA database uses HANA System Replication (HSR) for high availability. The primary HANA instance is in us-east-1a and the secondary is in us-east-1b. The application servers are split across both AZs. Recently, during a maintenance window, the primary HANA instance failed unexpectedly. The secondary automatically took over. However, after the failover, the application servers in us-east-1a are experiencing higher latency when connecting to the database, while application servers in us-east-1b have normal latency. The network team confirms that the inter-AZ latency is within normal limits. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the increased latency?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

The application servers in us-east-1a are now connecting to the HANA database in us-east-1b, which adds inter-AZ latency.. After the failover, the secondary HANA instance in us-east-1b became the active database. Application servers in us-east-1a must now connect across AZs to reach the database in us-east-1b, incurring inter-AZ latency. Although the network team confirms normal inter-AZ latency, the additional network hop and physical distance between AZs still introduce higher latency compared to same-AZ connections, which explains the observed increase.

Answer

The secondary HANA instance is using a different instance type with a single Elastic Network Interface (ENI), which limits throughput.

Answer

The placement group that includes the application servers and the database is now split across AZs, reducing performance.

Answer

The EBS volumes attached to the old primary instance are still being replicated to the secondary, causing network congestion.

Question 2

A company is migrating a custom CRM application to AWS. The application uses a PostgreSQL database. Which migration approach minimizes downtime?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication (CDC).. AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing change data capture (CDC) enables near-zero downtime migration by continuously replicating changes from the source to the target until cutover. Options B, C, and D all require taking the source database offline for backup or export, resulting in significant downtime.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to create a snapshot and restore to RDS.

Answer

Take a full backup of the source database, restore to RDS for PostgreSQL, and then cut over.

Answer

Use pg_dump to export the database and pg_restore to import into RDS.

Question 3

An administrator deploys the CloudFormation stack above. The EC2 instance launches but the s3fs mount fails. Which TWO actions are needed to fix the issue? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Create an IAM role with permissions to access the S3 bucket and attach it to the EC2 instance.. Options A and B are correct. The EC2 instance needs an IAM role with S3 bucket permissions (A) and the role must be attached via an IAM instance profile in the CloudFormation template (B). Option C is incorrect because outbound HTTPS is already allowed by default security group rules and S3 uses HTTPS. Option D is incorrect because bucket region does not affect access; cross-region access works. Option E is incorrect because the UserData script runs as root, so 'sudo' is unnecessary and may cause the command to fail if sudo is not configured.

Answer

Modify the security group to allow outbound HTTPS traffic.

Answer

Ensure the S3 bucket is in the same region as the EC2 instance.

Answer

Add 'sudo' before the s3fs command in the UserData script.

Question 4

A company is migrating its SAP Business Warehouse (BW) system to AWS. The source system runs on an on-premises IBM AIX server with an Oracle database. The target AWS environment will use SAP HANA as the database. The migration tool is SAP Software Provisioning Manager (SWPM). The company has a requirement to minimize downtime during the migration. The SAP BW system has 5 TB of data. The network bandwidth between on-premises and AWS is 1 Gbps. The migration team plans to use AWS Direct Connect for the data transfer. They estimate that the initial data load will take approximately 12 hours. However, the cutover window is limited to 8 hours. What should the migration team do to meet the cutover window?

Accepted Answer

Use SAP Landscape Transformation (SLT) to replicate data in real-time after the initial load, and then perform a final delta sync during the cutover window.. SAP Landscape Transformation (SLT) can replicate data in near real-time from the source Oracle database to the target SAP HANA using trigger-based replication. After the initial 12-hour data load is completed before the cutover window, SLT captures ongoing changes and applies them during the final delta sync within the 8-hour cutover window, minimizing downtime. This approach decouples the lengthy initial load from the limited cutover period, meeting the requirement.

Answer

Use AWS DataSync to accelerate the data transfer and then import into HANA.

Answer

Perform a HANA system replication from the source to the target after the initial load.

Answer

Request a higher bandwidth Direct Connect connection to reduce the initial load time to under 8 hours.

Question 5

An SAP administrator notices that the SAP HANA database on an r5.8xlarge instance is experiencing high swap usage. The instance has 256 GB of RAM. The SAP HANA memory usage is 200 GB. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The swap space is too small for the HANA workload. High swap usage on an r5.8xlarge instance with 256 GB RAM when SAP HANA is using 200 GB indicates that the system is actively paging memory to disk. SAP HANA is designed to run in-memory and should not normally use swap; however, if the swap space is too small to accommodate the overflow when memory pressure occurs, the system will exhibit high swap activity. The correct answer is C because insufficient swap space forces the kernel to thrash, causing high swap usage even when total memory is not fully exhausted.

Answer

The instance memory is exhausted

Answer

HANA is using huge pages instead of swap

Answer

Swap is disabled on the instance

Question 6

An SAP system running on AWS is experiencing performance issues. The operations team suspects that the Amazon EBS volumes attached to the SAP application server are not providing sufficient IOPS. Which AWS service should be used to monitor the IOPS performance of the EBS volumes?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch. Amazon CloudWatch provides detailed monitoring metrics for Amazon EBS volumes, including `VolumeReadOps` and `VolumeWriteOps`, which directly measure IOPS performance. By using CloudWatch metrics, the operations team can track the actual IOPS delivered to the SAP application server and identify whether the volumes are throttled or under-provisioned.

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

Amazon Inspector

Question 7

A company is migrating an SAP ERP system on Oracle to SAP HANA on AWS. The migration requires near-zero downtime. The company has a test environment that can be used for the migration rehearsal. The SAP HANA database will be 3 TB. Which migration approach should the company use to achieve near-zero downtime?

Accepted Answer

Use SAP Software Update Manager (SUM) with Database Migration Option (DMO).. SAP Software Update Manager (SUM) with Database Migration Option (DMO) is the correct approach because it combines the SAP system upgrade and the migration from Oracle to SAP HANA into a single process, leveraging SAP's own tools to minimize downtime. DMO uses a trigger-based replication mechanism that can achieve near-zero downtime by keeping the source Oracle database and target SAP HANA database synchronized during the migration window, which is critical for a 3 TB database where traditional backup-restore would exceed downtime limits.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for ongoing replication.

Answer

Perform a full backup of the Oracle database and restore to SAP HANA.

Answer

Use SAP HANA Studio to export the Oracle schema and import into HANA.

Question 8

Which THREE AWS services can be used to automate the patching of SAP application servers on EC2? (Choose 3).

Accepted Answer

AWS OpsWorks. AWS OpsWorks is correct because it provides a configuration management service that uses Chef or Puppet to automate the patching and lifecycle management of SAP application servers on EC2. You can define custom recipes or manifests to apply OS and application patches consistently across your SAP infrastructure, ensuring compliance and reducing manual effort.

Answer

AWS Auto Scaling

Answer

AWS CloudFormation

Question 9

A company is deploying SAP S/4HANA on AWS and needs to choose a storage solution for the HANA data volume that provides high IOPS and low latency. Which TWO storage options are suitable? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Amazon EC2 instance store (NVMe SSD). Amazon EC2 instance store (NVMe SSD) provides very high IOPS and ultra-low latency because it is physically attached to the host server, making it ideal for SAP HANA data volumes that require consistent, sub-millisecond performance. Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes deliver up to 256,000 IOPS per volume with single-digit millisecond latency and 99.999% durability, meeting SAP HANA's demanding storage performance requirements.

Answer

Amazon EBS gp2 volumes

Answer

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)

Answer

Amazon S3

Question 10

Which THREE considerations are important when designing a SAP workload for high availability on AWS? (Select three.)

Accepted Answer

Deploy the SAP application across multiple Availability Zones. In SAP high availability on AWS, deploying across multiple Availability Zones (Option B) protects against AZ failures, SAP HANA System Replication (Option E) ensures database failover, and using Amazon S3 for long-term backup storage (Option D) is a critical component of disaster recovery, which is integral to overall high availability design. Option A (EBS Multi-Attach) is not a standard HA practice due to limitations with concurrent writes and cluster file system requirements; typical shared storage uses Amazon EFS or FSx. Option C (single large instance) provides no redundancy, thus is not HA.

Answer

Use EBS Multi-Attach to share volumes between two EC2 instances

Answer

Run the SAP system on a single large instance

Question 11

An SAP Basis administrator notices that the SAP HANA database performance has degraded significantly after migrating to AWS. The database is running on an r5.8xlarge instance with 3.6 TB of Amazon EBS gp3 storage. The administrator checks Amazon CloudWatch metrics and finds that the Read/Write latency is consistently above 10 ms and the queue depth is averaging 32. What is the MOST likely cause of the performance degradation?

Accepted Answer

The EC2 instance's EBS bandwidth is fully utilized, causing I/O queueing.. The r5.8xlarge instance provides a maximum EBS bandwidth of 4,750 Mbps and a maximum EBS IOPS of 60,000. With a queue depth averaging 32 and latency above 10 ms, the instance's EBS bandwidth is saturated, causing I/O requests to queue and wait. This is the classic symptom of hitting the instance-level EBS bandwidth limit, not a volume-level issue.

Answer

The EC2 instance type does not support enough EBS bandwidth for the workload.

Answer

The gp3 volume burst credit balance is exhausted, causing throughput to drop to baseline.

Answer

The EBS gp3 volume size is too small, causing IOPS throttling.

Question 12

A company is migrating an SAP NetWeaver system to AWS. The system uses SAProuter for secure network communication. What is the recommended approach to preserve the SAProuter functionality during the migration?

Accepted Answer

Deploy SAProuter on an EC2 instance with an Elastic IP address. Deploying SAProuter on an EC2 instance with an Elastic IP address preserves the existing SAProuter configuration and ensures a stable endpoint that can be referenced in firewall rules and SAP routing tables. Option B (AWS NAT Gateway) is incorrect because a NAT Gateway is used for outbound internet traffic from private subnets and does not provide a persistent inbound endpoint for SAProuter connections. Option C (AWS Site-to-Site VPN) is incorrect because while a VPN provides secure connectivity between on-premises and AWS, it does not replace the need for SAProuter, which operates at the application layer. Option D (Application Load Balancer) is incorrect because an ALB is designed for HTTP/HTTPS traffic and cannot handle the proprietary protocol used by SAProuter.

Answer

Use an AWS NAT Gateway to route traffic

Answer

Establish an AWS Site-to-Site VPN connection

Answer

Use an AWS Application Load Balancer

Question 13

An SAP application on AWS is experiencing high network latency and packet loss between the SAP application server and the SAP HANA database. The application and database are in the same AWS Region and Availability Zone. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

TCP segmentation offloading (TSO) is enabled on the HANA database instance.. C is correct because TCP segmentation offloading (TSO) on the HANA database instance can cause the network interface to deliver oversized TCP segments to the SAP application server, which may not handle them correctly, leading to packet loss and high latency. This is a known issue in SAP on AWS environments where TSO offloads segmentation to the NIC, but if the receiving side lacks proper support or the network path has MTU mismatches, fragmentation and retransmissions occur.

Answer

Jumbo frames are enabled on the application server but not on the database server.

Answer

The instances are not in a placement group.

Answer

The Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) driver is not installed.

Question 14

A company runs its SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance in a single Availability Zone. The system is critical and requires high availability. The current setup uses an EBS volume for data storage. During a recent failure simulation, the database took 45 minutes to recover because the EBS volume had to be reattached and the database had to replay logs. The operations team wants to reduce recovery time to less than 15 minutes. Which solution should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Deploy a second EC2 instance in a different Availability Zone and configure SAP HANA system replication.. Deploying a second EC2 instance in a different Availability Zone with SAP HANA system replication (synchronous replication) provides a standby database that can be promoted quickly, reducing recovery time to minutes. Option B is incorrect because more frequent snapshots still require restoring and log replay, which takes longer. Option C is incorrect because increasing provisioned IOPS improves performance but does not affect recovery time during failure. Option D is incorrect because Amazon S3 is an object storage service not suitable for low-latency database operations like SAP HANA.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to create more frequent snapshots.

Answer

Increase the provisioned IOPS of the EBS volume.

Answer

Move the database to Amazon S3 for faster access.

Question 15

A company is migrating a large SAP S/4HANA system (8 TB total data, high I/O) from on-premises to AWS. The SAP system runs on HANA database and uses a three-tier architecture with application servers and database servers. The migration plan must minimize downtime and ensure data consistency. The company has a 10 Gbps direct connection to AWS. They have considered using AWS DMS, but the database is SAP HANA, which is not supported as a source by DMS. The migration team needs to transfer the HANA database and also the application files. They also need to replicate ongoing changes to minimize downtime. Which combination of AWS services should the migration team use? (Choose the best answer.)

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) for the application servers. Use HANA Backint agent to back up the database to S3 and perform incremental backups for ongoing replication.. AWS DMS does not support SAP HANA as a source, eliminating options C and D. Option B (DataSync) can copy files but lacks ongoing replication to minimize downtime. Option A uses AWS MGN to replicate application servers continuously, and HANA Backint agent to back up the HANA database to S3 with incremental backups, enabling point-in-time recovery and minimal downtime. This combination addresses both the database and application migration requirements effectively.

Answer

Use AWS DataSync to copy the entire HANA database files (data and log volumes) and application files to AWS. Then restore from the copied files.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with SAP HANA as a source by installing a custom connector. Use AWS DataSync for application files.

Answer

Use AWS DMS for the HANA database using a homogeneous migration. Use AWS MGN for the application servers.

Question 16

An SAP administrator needs to ensure that an EC2 instance hosting SAP HANA is rebooted automatically after a hardware failure. Which AWS feature provides this capability?

Accepted Answer

EC2 Auto Recovery. EC2 Auto Recovery is the correct AWS feature because it automatically recovers an EC2 instance when a hardware failure on the underlying physical host is detected. For SAP HANA workloads, this ensures the instance is rebooted on a healthy host without manual intervention, maintaining high availability for critical database operations.

Answer

Placement group

Answer

Auto Scaling group

Answer

Elastic IP address

Question 17

An SAP administrator attaches this IAM policy to a user. Which action will the user be allowed to perform on an EC2 instance with the tag 'Environment: Production'?

Accepted Answer

Reboot the instance. The IAM policy grants the ec2:RebootInstances action with a condition that the resource must have the tag 'Environment: Production'. Therefore, the user is allowed to reboot any EC2 instance that carries that tag. The other actions (start, terminate, modify instance type) are not explicitly allowed by the policy, so they are denied by default.

Answer

Start the instance

Answer

Terminate the instance

Answer

Modify the instance type

Question 18

A company runs a stateful web application on EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group with a dynamic scaling policy based on CPU utilization. The application maintains session state in memory on each instance. Users report that they are frequently logged out and lose their session data during scaling events. What should the company do to resolve this issue?

Accepted Answer

Modify the application to store session state in an Amazon ElastiCache cluster. Storing session state externally in ElastiCache decouples session data from individual EC2 instances. This ensures that when instances are terminated or added during scaling events, users retain their session state regardless of which instance serves their request. ElastiCache provides a low-latency, in-memory cache that is ideal for session persistence in stateful web applications.

Answer

Change the scaling policy to a simple scaling policy instead of dynamic scaling

Answer

Enable sticky sessions (session affinity) on the Application Load Balancer

Answer

Increase the cooldown period for the Auto Scaling group

Question 19

Which TWO options are valid strategies for backing up an SAP HANA database running on Amazon EC2? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Use SAP HANA Backint to back up to Amazon S3.. SAP HANA Backint is a certified interface for integrating SAP HANA backups directly with Amazon S3, allowing native backup and restore operations without additional infrastructure. Option C is correct because AWS Backup can create crash-consistent EBS snapshots of HANA data volumes, which can be used for recovery if the database is in backup mode or if you use pre- and post-scripts to ensure consistency.

Answer

Use Amazon RDS automated backups for SAP HANA.

Answer

Use Amazon S3 Lifecycle policies to transition HANA backups to Glacier.

Answer

Use EC2 instance store to copy HANA data files.

Question 20

A company runs SAP Business Suite on an SAP HANA database on AWS. The database uses EBS gp2 volumes. The operations team notices high latency during peak hours. The metrics show that the volume queue depth is consistently above the recommended threshold. What is the MOST cost-effective change to reduce latency?

Accepted Answer

Increase the size of the existing EBS gp2 volume to a larger size.. Increasing the size of an existing gp2 volume is the most cost-effective solution because gp2 volumes have a baseline performance of 3 IOPS per GB, and they can burst up to 3,000 IOPS for volumes up to 1,000 GB. By increasing the volume size, you raise the baseline IOPS, which reduces the queue depth without incurring the higher per-GB cost of io1 or io2 volumes. This directly addresses the high latency caused by queue depth exceeding the recommended threshold during peak hours.

Answer

Migrate from gp2 to io2 EBS volumes with the same size.

Answer

Modify the volume to use Provisioned IOPS (io1) with a higher IOPS value.

Answer

Add an additional EBS volume and stripe the volumes using LVM.