PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Test 27 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An SAP administrator needs to monitor the disk I/O performance of an Aurora PostgreSQL database used by SAP. Which Amazon CloudWatch metric should be used to track read and write operations per second?

Accepted Answer

ReadIOPS and WriteIOPS. Option C is correct because ReadIOPS and WriteIOPS metrics track the number of read and write operations per second. Option A (CPUUtilization) tracks CPU. Option B (DatabaseConnections) tracks connections. Option D (FreeableMemory) tracks memory.

Answer

FreeableMemory

Answer

CPUUtilization

Answer

DatabaseConnections

Question 2

A company runs SAP on AWS and uses AWS Backup to back up the SAP HANA database. The backup job fails with an error indicating insufficient IAM permissions. What is the most likely missing permission?

Accepted Answer

kms:Decrypt. AWS Backup requires permissions to decrypt the KMS key used to encrypt the SAP HANA database or its backup target. If the IAM role assigned to AWS Backup lacks the `kms:Decrypt` action for the specific KMS key, the backup job fails with an insufficient IAM permissions error. This is because AWS Backup must read the encrypted data before transferring it to the backup vault.

Answer

ec2:DescribeInstances

Answer

rds:CreateDBSnapshot

Answer

s3:PutObject

Question 3

An SAP system on AWS uses a shared file system via Amazon EFS mounted on multiple EC2 instances. Users report that file operations are slow. Which metric in Amazon CloudWatch should be analyzed to determine if the EFS file system's throughput is being throttled?

Accepted Answer

BurstCreditBalance. Option D is correct because the BurstCreditBalance metric indicates the remaining burst credits; if it reaches zero, throughput is throttled. Option A (DataReadIOBytes) measures data read. Option B (PercentIOLimit) is not a standard metric. Option C (MeteredIOBytes) measures metered I/O.

Answer

PercentIOLimit

Answer

DataReadIOBytes

Answer

MeteredIOBytes

Question 4

An SAP administrator needs to rotate the SSL/TLS certificate for the SAP Web Dispatcher running on an EC2 instance. The new certificate is stored in AWS Certificate Manager (ACM). How should the administrator deploy the certificate to the Web Dispatcher?

Accepted Answer

Export the certificate from ACM using the AWS CLI and install it on the EC2 instance.. Option B is correct because ACM certificates cannot be directly downloaded; they must be exported or used via a load balancer or CloudFront. Option A (direct download) is not possible. Option C (ACM integration) is not supported natively. Option D (import to ACM) is for bringing your own certificate.

Answer

Download the certificate from ACM and manually install it on the EC2 instance.

Answer

Configure ACM to automatically push the certificate to the EC2 instance.

Answer

Import the new certificate into ACM and associate it with an Application Load Balancer in front of the Web Dispatcher.

Question 5

A company runs SAP on AWS and needs to implement a disaster recovery (DR) strategy that meets a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 2 hours. The DR region must have the SAP application stack ready but the database can be replayed from backups. Which TWO actions should be taken to meet these requirements? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Set up a cross-region read replica for the Aurora PostgreSQL database.. Options A and D are correct. A cross-region read replica for Aurora PostgreSQL provides near-real-time replication meeting the 15-minute RPO. Pre-provisioning EC2 instances in the DR region reduces RTO. Option B (cross-region snapshot) may have higher RPO. Option C (single-region) does not meet DR requirements. Option E (S3 cross-region replication) is for files, not database.

Answer

Use a single-region Multi-AZ deployment for the database.

Answer

Use S3 cross-region replication for the application log files.

Answer

Take daily snapshots of the database and copy them to the DR region.

Question 6

An SAP administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue on an SAP HANA database running on an EC2 instance. The instance type is r5.4xlarge with EBS-optimized enabled. CloudWatch metrics show high WriteIOPS but low throughput. Which THREE factors could be causing this behavior? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

The SAP HANA database is performing many small write operations.. Options A, C, and D are correct. Small I/O operations cause high IOPS but low throughput. EBS volume limits can cap throughput. Multithreading contention reduces throughput. Option B (large block size) would increase throughput. Option E (EBS optimization) is enabled and not the issue.

Answer

The instance's EBS-optimized feature is not enabled.

Answer

The EBS volume is configured with a large block size.

Question 7

A company runs SAP on AWS and wants to ensure that all API calls to create, modify, or delete EC2 instances are logged for auditing. Which TWO AWS services can be used together to achieve this? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail. Options A and C are correct. AWS CloudTrail logs API calls. Amazon CloudWatch Logs can store the logs for analysis. Option B (VPC Flow Logs) captures network traffic, not API calls. Option D (AWS Config) tracks configuration changes but not all API calls. Option E (S3 server access logs) logs access to S3 buckets.

Answer

Amazon S3 server access logs

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon VPC Flow Logs

Question 8

A company runs a critical SAP HANA database on an Amazon EC2 instance. The operations team receives an alert that the instance's EBS-optimized throughput is consistently exceeding the baseline performance of the gp2 volume. Which action should the team take to resolve the performance issue without downtime?

Accepted Answer

Modify the volume type to gp3 and adjust the throughput setting.. Option B is correct because modifying the volume type to gp3 allows dynamic adjustment of IOPS and throughput without downtime, improving performance. Option A is wrong because stopping the instance causes downtime. Option C is wrong because increasing the volume size increases baseline IOPS but may not be sufficient and also requires downtime if the OS partition is resized. Option D is wrong because enabling EBS optimization on a running instance requires a reboot.

Answer

Enable EBS optimization on the EC2 instance.

Answer

Increase the volume size to improve baseline IOPS.

Answer

Stop the EC2 instance and increase the volume size.

Question 9

A company is running SAP ERP on AWS with a multi-AZ deployment using Amazon EFS for shared transport directories. The system administrator notices that the SAP transport directory mounted via EFS is experiencing high latency during peak hours. The EFS file system is using the Standard storage class. Which combination of steps should the administrator take to reduce latency? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Move the EFS file system to the One Zone storage class.. Option B is correct because enabling the Max I/O performance mode increases throughput for high-latency workloads. Option D is correct because moving to EFS One Zone can reduce latency if the workload is in a single AZ. Option A is wrong because increasing provisioned throughput is not available with Standard class; need Max I/O. Option C is wrong because changing to Bursting Throughput mode doesn't guarantee low latency. Option E is wrong because switching to EFS Standard-IA doesn't improve latency.

Answer

Use EFS Bursting Throughput mode.

Answer

Change the storage class to EFS Standard-IA.

Answer

Enable provisioned throughput on the EFS file system.

Question 10

A company has an SAP HANA database running on an EC2 instance with a single 500 GB gp2 volume. The database is experiencing I/O bottlenecks. The operations team wants to increase IOPS without changing the volume size. Which action should they take?

Accepted Answer

Modify the volume to increase its size to 1,000 GB.. Option A is correct because gp2 IOPS scale linearly with size; increasing volume size increases baseline IOPS. Option B is wrong because changing to st1 is not suitable for database workloads. Option C is wrong because enabling EBS optimization on the instance does not increase volume IOPS. Option D is wrong because attaching additional volumes requires RAID configuration and may not be straightforward.

Answer

Enable EBS optimization on the EC2 instance.

Answer

Change the volume type to st1 (throughput optimized).

Answer

Attach an additional gp2 volume and use it for temporary data.

Question 11

A company is migrating its SAP ERP system to AWS and needs to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS). They plan to use two EC2 instances in different Availability Zones with a shared file system. Which AWS service should they use to manage the failover of the virtual IP address?

Accepted Answer

Configure Amazon Route 53 with failover routing and health checks for the virtual IP.. Option C is correct because AWS offers a managed solution for SAP HANA and SAP NetWeaver using Route 53 health checks and failover routing, but for virtual IP, the recommended approach is to use Amazon Route 53 with failover routing or an Elastic IP reassignment. However, for ASCS/ERS, the standard is to use a Network Load Balancer (NLB) with a static IP. Option A is wrong because EC2 does not allow moving Elastic IPs across AZs automatically. Option B is wrong because Application Load Balancer does not support static IP. Option D is wrong because Classic Load Balancer is deprecated and not recommended.

Answer

Use an Elastic IP address and reassign it during failover using a script.

Answer

Deploy an Application Load Balancer to route traffic to the active instance.

Answer

Set up a Classic Load Balancer with cross-zone load balancing enabled.

Question 12

A company runs SAP on AWS and uses AWS CloudTrail to monitor API activity. The security team wants to receive real-time notifications when specific SAP-related API calls are made. Which AWS service should they use to filter and forward these events?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EventBridge. Option B is correct because Amazon EventBridge can ingest CloudTrail events and route them to targets such as SNS for notifications based on event patterns. Option A is wrong because Amazon Inspector is for vulnerability assessment. Option C is wrong because AWS Config is for resource compliance. Option D is wrong because AWS Trusted Advisor provides best practice checks, not real-time event filtering.

Answer

Amazon Inspector

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 13

A company is running SAP HANA on a memory-optimized EC2 instance with an EBS volume for /hana/data and /hana/log. The database administrator notices that the /hana/log volume is experiencing high write latency. The current volume is a gp2 volume with 1000 GB size. Which change would most effectively reduce write latency?

Accepted Answer

Ensure the EC2 instance is EBS-optimized and use a higher instance type with dedicated EBS bandwidth.. Option D is correct because using EBS-optimized instances with dedicated EBS bandwidth reduces contention and latency. Option A is wrong because increasing volume size increases IOPS but not necessarily reduces latency. Option B is wrong because changing to st1 is not ideal for log writes. Option C is wrong because enabling Multi-Attach does not reduce latency.

Answer

Change the volume type to st1 (throughput optimized) for better write throughput.

Answer

Increase the volume size to 2000 GB to get more IOPS.

Answer

Enable Multi-Attach on the volume to distribute writes.

Question 14

A company is running SAP BusinessObjects on AWS and needs to back up the CMS database (an SAP HANA database) daily. The backup must be stored in Amazon S3 for long-term retention and must be recoverable within 4 hours. Which backup strategy meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Configure the SAP HANA Backint agent to back up directly to Amazon S3.. Option A is correct because using HANA backup to S3 via the backint agent is a native and efficient method. Option B is wrong because taking EBS snapshots is not a database-consistent backup for HANA. Option C is wrong because AWS Backup does not natively support HANA database backups. Option D is wrong because copying to EBS volumes is not a long-term storage solution.

Answer

Copy the HANA data files to an Amazon EBS volume in a different Availability Zone.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to create application-consistent backups of the HANA database.

Answer

Take daily EBS snapshots of the HANA volumes.

Question 15

A company is running SAP ERP on AWS and uses SAP HANA as the database. The system administrator needs to apply an OS patch that requires a reboot. The SAP HANA database is running in a scale-out configuration across multiple EC2 instances. What is the best approach to minimize downtime?

Accepted Answer

Perform a rolling reboot of the HANA nodes, rebooting one node at a time.. Option C is correct because HANA scale-out supports rolling updates; rebooting one node at a time allows the database to remain operational. Option A is wrong because stopping all instances causes full downtime. Option B is wrong because taking EBS snapshots does not help with patching. Option D is wrong because creating an AMI is unnecessary and still requires downtime for the master.

Answer

Take EBS snapshots of all volumes before patching, then patch one by one.

Answer

Create an AMI of the master node and launch a new instance with the patch applied.

Answer

Stop all EC2 instances, apply the patch, and start them in sequence.