PAS-C01 Practice Test 9 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A company is designing a high-availability architecture for SAP NetWeaver on AWS. The architecture includes two application server instances in different Availability Zones, a shared file system using Amazon EFS, and a database using SAP HANA with HANA System Replication (HSR). During a failover test, the application servers cannot connect to the database after the HANA secondary becomes the primary. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The SAP application servers are configured with the hostname of the primary HANA instance, which did not update after failover.. In SAP NetWeaver, application servers connect to the database using a fixed hostname or virtual IP address. After HANA System Replication (HSR) failover, the secondary becomes the primary but retains its own hostname unless a virtual hostname (e.g., using Amazon Route 53 or Elastic IP) is configured to automatically update. If the application servers are hardcoded with the original primary's hostname, they cannot resolve or reach the new primary, causing connection failure.

Answer

HANA System Replication is not configured correctly for automatic failover.

Answer

The Amazon EFS file system is not available in the secondary Availability Zone.

Answer

The security group of the application servers does not allow outbound traffic to the secondary HANA instance.

Question 2

A company is migrating its SAP NetWeaver system to AWS and wants to implement a high-availability architecture for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS). Which TWO of the following are required components in a recommended AWS HA setup for ASCS and ERS?

Accepted Answer

A shared file system (e.g., Amazon EFS) to store the SAP transport directory and global profile.. Option A is correct because in an SAP NetWeaver high-availability architecture on AWS, a shared file system such as Amazon EFS is required to store the SAP transport directory and global profile. This ensures that both the ASCS and ERS instances can access consistent configuration and transport files, which is essential for failover and cluster operations. Without a shared file system, the instances would have divergent configurations, breaking the HA setup.

Answer

An Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic between ASCS and ERS instances.

Answer

A read replica of the SAP HANA database to offload application traffic.

Answer

A secondary Windows Server Failover Cluster in a different Availability Zone.

Question 3

A company runs SAP on AWS with an SAP HANA database on an r5.8xlarge instance. The company notices high network latency between the SAP application servers and the HANA database. The application servers are in the same VPC but different subnets. Which design change would MOST effectively reduce latency?

Accepted Answer

Launch the application servers and the HANA database in the same placement group.. Option A is correct because placing both the SAP application servers and the HANA database in the same cluster placement group ensures they are in close physical proximity within a single Availability Zone, minimizing network hops and reducing latency. Placement groups achieve this by co-locating instances on the same high-bandwidth, low-latency network fabric, which is critical for SAP HANA's real-time data processing requirements.

Answer

Create a VPC peering connection between the subnets of the application servers and the database.

Answer

Change the HANA database instance type to a compute-optimized instance such as c5.9xlarge.

Answer

Enable Enhanced Networking on the application servers by attaching an Elastic Network Adapter (ENA).

Question 4

A company runs SAP Business Suite on AWS. They notice that their SAP application servers are not evenly distributing load across multiple instances. They have configured an Application Load Balancer (ALB) in front of the SAP Web Dispatchers. What is the MOST likely cause of uneven load distribution?

Accepted Answer

Sticky sessions (session stickiness) are enabled on the ALB.. When sticky sessions (session stickiness) are enabled on an Application Load Balancer, the ALB uses a cookie to bind a client's session to a specific target (SAP Web Dispatcher). This prevents the load balancer from distributing subsequent requests from that client to other healthy targets, causing an uneven distribution of load across the SAP application servers, especially if a few clients generate a disproportionate number of requests.

Answer

The ALB health check interval is too short.

Answer

Cross-zone load balancing is enabled.

Answer

The ALB is using the least outstanding requests routing algorithm.

Question 5

An operations team needs to automate the patching of EC2 instances running SAP applications. The instances are part of an Auto Scaling group. The team wants to apply patches without causing downtime to the SAP system. Which approach should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager with a maintenance window and configure the Auto Scaling group to perform a rolling update. Option C is correct because AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager can be integrated with an Auto Scaling group to perform a rolling update, which updates instances in batches, ensuring that the SAP application remains available throughout the patching process. This approach minimizes downtime by replacing or updating instances incrementally rather than all at once, which is critical for SAP systems that require high availability.

Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager with a maintenance window that patches all instances simultaneously

Answer

Use AWS CodeDeploy to deploy patches as a new application version

Answer

Use AWS OpsWorks to manage patching, configuring a rolling update

Question 6

A company plans to migrate their SAP HANA database to AWS. They require the highest availability with automatic failover in case of an AZ failure. Which architecture should they use?

Accepted Answer

Multi-AZ with HANA System Replication in sync mode and automatic failover.. Option A is correct because it meets the requirement for highest availability with automatic failover in case of an AZ failure. HANA System Replication (HSR) in synchronous mode ensures zero data loss (RPO=0) by committing transactions only after they are replicated to the standby, and when combined with Multi-AZ deployment, it provides automatic failover across Availability Zones. This architecture is the AWS-recommended pattern for SAP HANA high availability, leveraging the AWS Multi-AZ concept with HSR's built-in automatic takeover capability.

Answer

Single AZ with HANA System Replication to a standby in the same AZ.

Answer

Single AZ with daily backups to Amazon S3.

Answer

Multi-AZ with HANA System Replication in async mode and manual failover.

Question 7

A company is designing a disaster recovery (DR) strategy for SAP S/4HANA on AWS. The primary site is in us-east-1. They want a secondary site in us-west-2 with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 2 hours. Which solution meets these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Use HANA System Replication in sync mode with automatic failover to us-west-2.. Option D is correct because HANA System Replication in synchronous mode with automatic failover provides the lowest RPO (near-zero data loss) and meets the 15-minute RPO and 2-hour RTO requirements with minimal operational overhead. Automatic failover eliminates manual intervention, reducing recovery time and complexity compared to other options.

Answer

Take hourly backups to S3 and restore in us-west-2 when needed.

Answer

Use HANA System Replication to us-west-2 with manual failover.

Answer

Use HANA System Replication in async mode to us-west-2.

Question 8

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 9

An SAP administrator needs to review API calls made by a user who accidentally deleted an S3 bucket used for SAP backups. Which AWS service provides a record of these API calls?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail. AWS CloudTrail is the correct service because it records all API calls made to the AWS environment, including S3 bucket deletion events. When a user accidentally deletes an S3 bucket, CloudTrail captures the event details such as the user identity, source IP, and timestamp, enabling the SAP administrator to audit the action. This is essential for security analysis and operational troubleshooting in the context of SAP backups.

Answer

Amazon S3 server access logs

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Logs

Answer

AWS Config

Question 10

Which THREE are valid steps when performing a cross-Region disaster recovery failover for SAP HANA using AWS? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Start the SAP HANA database on the secondary instance. Option B is correct because starting the SAP HANA database on the secondary instance is a required step during a cross-Region disaster recovery failover. After promoting the secondary system replication target to primary, the SAP HANA database must be started to make it available for client connections and resume operations.

Answer

Create an EBS snapshot of the primary database volume

Answer

Stop the SAP HANA database on the primary instance