PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Test 16 — 15 Questions

Question 1

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.. Using a rolling patching strategy with Auto Scaling group or custom scripts that patch one node at a time while ensuring the node is temporarily removed from the HANA cluster minimizes downtime. Option A is correct. Option B is wrong because stopping all nodes causes downtime. Option C is wrong because just using AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager patches all at once without coordination. Option D is wrong because replacing instances from an AMI is more complex and may require data reload.

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 2

An SAP system is experiencing high CPU utilization on the application server. The administrator wants to automatically scale the EC2 instance based on CPU usage. Which AWS service should be used?

Accepted Answer

AWS Auto Scaling. Auto Scaling with scaling policies based on CloudWatch alarms can automatically adjust the number of instances. Option B is correct. Option A is wrong because Elastic Load Balancing distributes traffic, not scaling. Option C is wrong because CloudWatch monitors but does not scale. Option D is wrong because Lambda can be used but is not the primary service for EC2 scaling.

Answer

Elastic Load Balancing

Answer

AWS Lambda

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch

Question 3

A company wants to automate the backup of SAP HANA databases running on AWS. Which combination of AWS services is suitable for this task?

Accepted Answer

AWS Backup and the SAP HANA Backint agent. AWS Backup can automate backups of EBS volumes, and Backint agent for SAP HANA integrates with S3 for HANA-specific backups. Option C is correct. Option A is wrong because S3 alone does not automate backups. Option B is wrong because EBS snapshots alone don't handle HANA consistency. Option D is wrong because CloudWatch is not for backup.

Answer

Amazon EBS snapshots and AWS Lambda

Answer

Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Events and AWS Lambda

Question 4

An SAP system running on AWS is experiencing intermittent connectivity issues between the application server and the database server. Both servers are in the same VPC but different subnets. The security groups and network ACLs are correctly configured. Which AWS service can help diagnose the network path and identify packet loss?

Accepted Answer

VPC Flow Logs. VPC Flow Logs capture IP traffic metadata and can be analyzed to detect packet loss or rejected connections. Option D is correct. Option A is wrong because CloudTrail logs API calls. Option B is wrong because Direct Connect is for on-premises connectivity. Option C is wrong because VPN is also for external connectivity.

Answer

AWS Direct Connect

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Site-to-Site VPN

Question 5

A company is running SAP on AWS and wants to ensure that the system meets the SLA for availability. The operations team needs to monitor the health of the SAP application stack (ASCS, PAS, DB). Which AWS service can provide a centralized dashboard to visualize the health and performance metrics?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Dashboards. CloudWatch Dashboards can aggregate metrics from multiple sources, including custom SAP metrics, into a single view. Option B is correct. Option A is wrong because Config is for configuration. Option C is wrong because S3 is storage. Option D is wrong because CloudTrail records API calls.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon S3

Question 6

Which TWO actions are recommended to ensure high availability for SAP NetWeaver on AWS? (Choose 2).

Accepted Answer

Use an Application Load Balancer with health checks to distribute traffic.. Placing instances in different Availability Zones (B) and using a load balancer with health checks (C) are best practices for high availability. Option A is wrong because single zone is not HA. Option D is wrong because t2 series are burstable and not recommended for production SAP. Option E is wrong because EBS volumes are already durable; snapshots don't provide HA.

Answer

Use a single Availability Zone to reduce latency.

Answer

Take frequent EBS snapshots to ensure data durability.

Answer

Use t2 instance types to reduce cost.

Question 7

Which THREE steps should be taken to monitor the performance of an SAP HANA database on AWS? (Choose 3).

Accepted Answer

Install the CloudWatch agent on the EC2 instance to collect memory and disk metrics.. Monitoring EBS volume metrics (A), using CloudWatch agent for OS metrics (B), and setting alarms for HANA-specific metrics (E) are key. Option C is wrong because CloudTrail does not monitor performance. Option D is wrong because Direct Connect is for network connectivity.

Answer

Set up AWS Direct Connect to monitor network latency.

Answer

Enable AWS CloudTrail to track all API calls to the HANA database.

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

An SAP administrator created the IAM policy shown for a backup script. The script fails when trying to upload a backup to S3. What is the likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The KMS key ARN is malformed; it contains extra characters.. The S3 action is allowed on objects only (arn:aws:s3:::sap-backup-bucket/*) but not on the bucket itself. For PutObject, the resource must be the object ARN, which is correct. However, the policy also requires kms:Decrypt for the KMS key, but the key ARN is wrong (it has extra characters). Option B is correct. Option A is wrong because the action is allowed. Option C is wrong because ec2:Describe* is not needed. Option D is wrong because the bucket policy is not shown.

Answer

The resource for S3 should include the bucket itself (arn:aws:s3:::sap-backup-bucket).

Answer

The ec2:Describe* action is not required and causes a conflict.

Answer

The s3:* action is too broad and is denied by an S3 bucket policy.

Question 10

A company runs a critical SAP ERP system on AWS. The system consists of a single EC2 instance running SAP NetWeaver with an Oracle database on the same instance. The instance type is r5.4xlarge with 500 GB gp2 EBS volume for the database. The operations team receives a CloudWatch alarm that the EBS volume's 'BurstBalance' metric has dropped to 0%. Consequently, the database performance degrades significantly. The team needs to resolve the issue and prevent recurrence. The SAP system cannot tolerate more than 10 minutes of downtime. The budget is limited. Which action should the team take?

Accepted Answer

Change the EBS volume type from gp2 to gp3 and increase the IOPS and throughput settings as needed.. Switching to gp3 provides baseline performance without burst credits and is cost-effective. Option C is correct. Option A is wrong because increasing to io2 volumes is more expensive and may require downtime if not using elasticity. Option B is wrong because changing to st1 is for throughput-optimized workloads, not suitable for database. Option D is wrong because adding more volumes and striping is complex and may require downtime.

Answer

Migrate the database to an io2 Block Express volume with provisioned IOPS.

Answer

Add additional EBS volumes and configure RAID 0 striping to increase IOPS.

Answer

Increase the volume size to 1000 GB to increase baseline IOPS and burst credits.

Question 11

A company is deploying SAP S/4HANA on AWS and needs to ensure high availability for the central services (ASCS and ERS). The architecture uses two EC2 instances in different Availability Zones with a shared file system using Amazon EFS for /sapmnt. The SAP system is configured with an enqueue replication server. The operations team needs to automate the failover of the ASCS instance in case of a failure. The team is considering using AWS services for this purpose. Which approach should the team use?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon Route 53 with health checks and a custom script to update DNS record on failover.. Using AWS Route 53 health checks to monitor the ASCS instance and a custom script to update DNS records on failover provides a simple and effective HA solution. Option D is correct. Option A is wrong because ALB cannot direct traffic to a single SAP instance for ASCS. Option B is wrong because Auto Scaling is for scaling out, not HA for stateful services. Option C is wrong because EC2 Auto Recovery recovers the instance but does not handle failover to another AZ.

Answer

Use an Application Load Balancer with a target group containing both ASCS instances.

Answer

Use an Auto Scaling group with a minimum of 2 instances and a lifecycle hook to handle failover.

Answer

Enable EC2 Auto Recovery to automatically recover the ASCS instance on new hardware.

Question 12

A company runs a production SAP HANA database on AWS using an EC2 instance with EBS volumes. The database is experiencing high latency during peak hours. The operations team needs to identify the root cause. Which steps should the team take to diagnose the issue?

Accepted Answer

Monitor the EBS volume queue length and latency using Amazon CloudWatch metrics.. Option C is correct because CloudWatch metrics for EBS volume queue depth and latency can pinpoint the bottleneck. Option A is wrong because increasing instance size without diagnosis may not resolve the issue and could increase cost. Option B is wrong because switching to Provisioned IOPS without understanding the workload may be premature. Option D is wrong because migrating to RDS for SAP HANA is not a standard solution and may not address the specific latency issue.

Answer

Migrate the EBS volumes to Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1) immediately.

Answer

Move the SAP HANA database to Amazon RDS for SAP.

Answer

Increase the instance size to improve performance.

Question 13

An SAP system on AWS is configured with a Multi-AZ deployment for high availability. During a failover test, the operations team notices that the secondary instance does not take over correctly. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The route tables or security groups do not allow traffic to the secondary instance.. Option B is correct because incorrect DNS resolution or routing can prevent the secondary instance from being reachable after failover. Option A is wrong because Multi-AZ automatically handles IP changes if configured properly. Option C is wrong because application layer misconfiguration may not affect the failover itself. Option D is wrong because CloudWatch alarms do not control failover.

Answer

The SAP application layer is not configured to retry connections.

Answer

The CloudWatch alarm thresholds for failover are set too high.

Answer

The secondary instance's IP address is not automatically updated in DNS.

Question 14

A company has an SAP S/4HANA system running on AWS with a custom backup solution that uses AWS Backup. The backup policy includes daily backups with a retention of 30 days. The operations team notices that backup jobs for the SAP application server are failing intermittently. What should the team do to troubleshoot the issue?

Accepted Answer

Review the CloudWatch Logs for the backup job to identify error messages.. Option D is correct because checking CloudWatch Logs for backup job errors provides specific details on failures. Option A is wrong because increasing backup frequency does not address the root cause. Option B is wrong because moving to a different backup tool may not be necessary. Option C is wrong while helpful, checking IAM roles may not be the only issue.

Answer

Verify that the IAM role used by AWS Backup has sufficient permissions.

Answer

Switch to using SAP HANA Studio for backups.

Answer

Increase the backup frequency to capture more recovery points.

Question 15

An operations team is responsible for patching the operating system of SAP EC2 instances. They want to automate the patching process while minimizing downtime. Which approach should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager with a maintenance window and a patch baseline.. Option B is correct because AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager automates patching with minimal downtime when used with a maintenance window. Option A is wrong because manual patching is not automated. Option C is wrong because OpsWorks is not designed for OS patching. Option D is wrong because Auto Scaling groups are for scaling, not patching.

Answer

Deploy a configuration management tool like AWS OpsWorks to apply patches.

Answer

Schedule a weekly maintenance window and manually apply patches via RDP/SSH.

Answer

Create an Auto Scaling group with a custom AMI that includes the latest patches.