PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Test 25 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An SAP Basis administrator is monitoring the health of an SAP HANA database on AWS. The administrator wants to receive alerts when the CPU utilization of the HANA instance exceeds 90% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which combination of AWS services should be used?

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

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch metrics and CloudWatch Alarms with Amazon SNS. Amazon CloudWatch metrics can collect CPU utilization from the SAP HANA instance (via the CloudWatch agent or native AWS metrics). CloudWatch Alarms can be configured to trigger when CPU exceeds 90% for 5 consecutive minutes. The alarm can then publish to an Amazon SNS topic to send notifications (e.g., email, SMS). This combination provides the required monitoring and alerting.

Answer

AWS X-Ray and Amazon CloudWatch Logs

Answer

AWS CloudTrail and AWS Lambda

Answer

AWS Config and Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)

Question 2

An SAP administrator needs to ensure that all API calls made to create, modify, or delete AWS resources are logged for auditing. Which AWS service should be enabled?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail. AWS CloudTrail logs all API calls made to create, modify, or delete AWS resources, providing an audit trail of actions taken by users, roles, or services. Enabling CloudTrail is the correct way to ensure API activity is recorded for auditing purposes.

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon GuardDuty

Question 3

An SAP administrator notices that the SAP application server is experiencing high memory utilization. The system uses a cluster of EC2 instances. What is the most cost-effective solution to automatically add an additional application server when memory exceeds 80%?

Accepted Answer

Configure an Auto Scaling group with a scaling policy based on a custom CloudWatch metric for memory utilization.. Memory utilization is not a default CloudWatch metric for EC2, so the administrator must publish it as a custom metric (via the CloudWatch agent) and use it in a target-tracking or step-scaling policy on an Auto Scaling group. This automatically adds an application server when memory exceeds 80%, which is the most cost-effective automated solution.

Answer

Create a CloudWatch alarm that sends an email to the administrator to manually launch a new instance.

Answer

Use an Auto Scaling group with a scaling policy based on CPU utilization.

Answer

Use AWS Elastic Beanstalk to deploy the application server.

Question 4

A company runs SAP HANA on AWS and wants to monitor the system for potential performance issues. Which metrics should be monitored to detect memory pressure?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA memory usage (from SAP HANA metrics). SAP HANA memory usage metrics, collected from the SAP HANA database itself, directly indicate whether the in-memory database is approaching its allocation limit or experiencing memory pressure. Monitoring metrics such as used memory, peak memory, and memory allocation limit from the SAP HANA metrics namespace is the correct way to detect memory pressure.

Answer

Network throughput

Answer

CPU utilization

Answer

EBS volume queue length

Question 5

An SAP administrator needs to patch the operating system of SAP application servers that are part of an Auto Scaling group. What is the best practice to ensure that instances are updated without downtime?

Accepted Answer

Create a new launch configuration with an updated AMI and perform a rolling update using the Auto Scaling group.. The best practice for patching instances in an Auto Scaling group without downtime is to create a new launch configuration (or launch template) with an updated AMI and perform a rolling update. This replaces instances gradually, maintaining availability. The rolling update ensures that a minimum number of instances remain in service while others are replaced.

Answer

Update the AMI used by the Auto Scaling group launch configuration and manually terminate all running instances.

Answer

Update the AMI and stop the Auto Scaling group, then start it again.

Answer

Install patches on each running instance using AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager.

Question 6

A company runs SAP HANA on AWS and wants to back up the database using Backint integration. Which AWS service is required to store the backups?

Accepted Answer

Amazon S3. SAP HANA's Backint API is an SAP-defined interface that lets third-party backup tools stream database backups directly to external storage. On AWS, the supported and required target for Backint-based HANA backups is Amazon S3, which stores the backup files durably and supports lifecycle transitions to colder tiers. AWS Backint Agent for SAP HANA is the AWS-provided tool that implements this integration and writes to S3.

Answer

Amazon S3 Glacier

Answer

Amazon EBS

Answer

Amazon EFS

Question 7

An operations team needs to ensure that all changes to AWS resources related to SAP systems are tracked and audited. Which AWS service should they use?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail. AWS CloudTrail records all API activity in the AWS account, including who made changes to SAP-related resources, when, and from where, making it the correct service for tracking and auditing changes. CloudTrail logs are the authoritative audit trail for AWS API calls and can be delivered to S3 and CloudWatch Logs for retention and analysis. This directly satisfies the requirement for change tracking and auditing.

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 8

A company is running SAP HANA on AWS and needs to ensure that the database can be recovered to a specific point in time within the last 24 hours. Which backup strategy should be used?

Accepted Answer

Full backups plus log backups every 5 minutes. Point-in-time recovery to any moment within the last 24 hours requires continuous transaction log backups in addition to full backups. SAP HANA log backups capture every committed transaction, and running them every 5 minutes limits the maximum data loss window to roughly 5 minutes, enabling recovery to a specific point in time. Full backups alone only restore to the moment of the last full backup, not an arbitrary point.

Answer

Incremental backups using Backint

Answer

Daily full EBS snapshots

Answer

Daily SAP HANA full backups

Question 9

Which TWO actions should be taken to improve the performance of an SAP HANA database running on AWS? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Increase the size of the HANA instance to allocate more memory.. Option A is correct because SAP HANA is an in-memory database whose performance depends heavily on having enough RAM to hold the working data set in memory; increasing the EC2 instance size (e.g., moving to a larger memory-optimized instance type) allocates more memory and avoids costly disk-based paging or column unloads. Option D is correct because EBS-optimized instances provide dedicated network bandwidth between the EC2 instance and attached EBS volumes, which reduces I/O contention and improves storage throughput/latency for HANA's persistence and log writes. Option B is wrong because termination protection is a safety/availability feature that prevents accidental instance termination and has no effect on database performance. Option C is wrong because an Application Load Balancer distributes HTTP/HTTPS traffic at layer 7 and is not used to improve the performance of a single HANA database instance. Option E is wrong because detailed monitoring only increases the frequency of CloudWatch metric delivery (1-minute instead of 5-minute) for observability, not actual database performance.

Answer

Enable termination protection on EC2 instances.

Answer

Use an Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic.

Answer

Enable detailed monitoring on EC2 instances.

Question 10

Which TWO components are required to set up SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) on AWS for high availability? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

A dedicated replication network interface with low latency.. Option A is correct because SAP HANA System Replication requires a dedicated, low-latency network path between the primary and secondary nodes for continuously shipping redo log entries; on AWS this is typically achieved with a separate ENI/subnet (often in a cluster placement group) so replication traffic is isolated from client and other traffic. Option B is correct because HSR for high availability requires a primary and a secondary HANA node, and placing the two EC2 instances in different Availability Zones provides AZ-level fault tolerance so the secondary can take over if the primary AZ fails. Option C is not required because an S3 bucket is only used for backing up redo log/backup files (e.g., via BACKINT), not for HSR log replication itself. Option D is not required because HSR replicates redo logs over the network to the secondary node's local storage; shared storage such as Amazon EFS is not used for HSR log replication (and is not supported for HANA data/log volumes). Option E is not required because HSR failover is handled by the HANA cluster/pacemaker and virtual IP or DNS, not by an NLB distributing database connections.

Answer

An Amazon S3 bucket for storing backup logs.

Answer

Shared storage (e.g., Amazon EFS) for log replication.

Answer

A Network Load Balancer to distribute database connections.

Question 11

A company is running SAP on AWS and needs to ensure high availability for their SAP HANA database. They have set up a multi-AZ deployment with replication. During a planned failover test, the secondary node fails to take over. Which AWS service should be used to monitor and automatically remediate the replication status?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch. Amazon CloudWatch is the correct service to monitor SAP HANA replication status. It can track metrics such as replication lag or state and, through CloudWatch Alarms, automatically trigger remediation actions like invoking an AWS Lambda function or an AWS Systems Manager Automation runbook to restart replication or adjust configurations. AWS Direct Connect is a network connectivity service and does not monitor or remediate database replication. AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a PaaS service for web applications, not HANA replication. AWS Lambda can perform remediation but does not natively monitor; it requires CloudWatch for triggering.

Answer

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Answer

AWS Direct Connect

Answer

AWS Lambda

Question 12

An SAP administrator notices that the SAP application performance has degraded over the past week. The system is running on Amazon EC2 with EBS volumes. Which AWS service should be used to analyze the performance impact of the EBS volumes?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch. Amazon CloudWatch provides EBS metrics such as VolumeReadOps, VolumeWriteOps, VolumeQueueLength, BurstBalance, and VolumeThroughputPercentage, which are essential for diagnosing performance degradation on EBS-backed EC2 instances. CloudWatch also supports detailed monitoring, alarms, and metric math to correlate EBS latency with application slowdowns. This makes it the correct service for analyzing EBS performance impact.

Answer

Amazon Inspector

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 13

A company is running SAP on AWS and needs to ensure that all changes to the SAP infrastructure are logged for audit purposes. Which AWS service should be enabled to record API calls?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail. (AWS CloudTrail) is correct because it records all API activity in the AWS account for audit purposes. Option B (Amazon GuardDuty) detects threats. Option C (Amazon CloudWatch) monitors performance. Option D (AWS Config) evaluates resource configurations.

Answer

Amazon GuardDuty

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch

Answer

AWS Config

Question 14

Which THREE actions should be taken to secure an SAP environment running on AWS?

Accepted Answer

Enable encryption at rest for Amazon EBS volumes.. Option C is correct because enabling encryption at rest for Amazon EBS volumes protects SAP data and database files stored on disk using AWS KMS-managed keys, so a compromised or improperly decommissioned volume cannot be read. Option D is correct because security groups act as stateful virtual firewalls at the ENI level, and restricting inbound and outbound traffic to only the ports SAP requires (for example, 3200-3299 for SAP GUI/dispatcher, 3300 for the message server, and 1521 or 1433 for the database) follows least-privilege network design. Option E is correct because IAM roles deliver temporary credentials to EC2 instances via the instance metadata service, eliminating long-lived access keys on SAP application servers and enabling fine-grained, auditable permissions. Option A is wrong because opening all ports exposes SAP services and the OS to unauthorized access and violates least privilege. Option B is wrong because disabling AWS CloudTrail removes API activity logging needed for auditing, monitoring, and incident response, and CloudTrail's first trail is available at no additional charge.

Answer

Open all ports to allow any traffic for flexibility.

Answer

Disable AWS CloudTrail to reduce costs.

Question 15

A company runs an SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance with a large EBS volume. The volume is approaching its maximum capacity. The operations team needs to increase the storage size without downtime. What is the most efficient way to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Use the AWS Management Console, CLI, or API to modify the existing EBS volume to increase its size while the instance is running.. Amazon EBS supports elastic volume modification, allowing you to increase the size, change the volume type, or adjust IOPS/throughput of an existing volume while it remains attached to a running EC2 instance. For SAP HANA on EC2, this means you can expand the storage without stopping the database or the instance. After modifying the volume, you must extend the file system (e.g., using resize2fs or xfs_growfs) to make the additional capacity available to the OS. This approach is the most efficient because it avoids downtime and data migration.

Answer

Create a new larger EBS volume and use rsync to copy data while the instance is running, then remount.

Answer

Stop the EC2 instance, detach the current EBS volume, create a new larger volume from a snapshot, attach it, and start the instance.

Answer

Add an additional EBS volume and use LVM to extend the logical volume.