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

Question 1

A company runs an SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance. During a maintenance window, an administrator needs to stop the instance but ensure that the data in the attached EBS volumes is preserved and the instance can be started later without data loss. Which action should the administrator take?

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

Accepted Answer

Stop the instance from the AWS Management Console.. Stopping an EBS-backed EC2 instance preserves the data on the EBS volumes, allowing the instance to be started later without data loss. Option A (hibernate) is for instances with specific configurations and may not preserve all SAP HANA states. Option B (terminate) would delete the instance and potentially the volumes, causing data loss. Option D (reboot) does not stop the instance and does not provide a clean state for maintenance.

Answer

Hibernate the instance from the AWS Management Console.

Answer

Terminate the instance from the AWS Management Console.

Answer

Reboot the instance from the AWS Management Console.

Question 2

A company runs SAP on AWS and needs to automate the patching of SAP application servers. The solution should apply patches during a defined maintenance window and ensure high availability. What is the most efficient approach?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager with a maintenance window.. AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager integrates with maintenance windows to automate patching during defined times. It can target instances in an Auto Scaling group, ensuring high availability by patching a subset at a time. This is the most efficient and automated approach. Option B (CloudFormation update) is more suited for infrastructure updates, not routine patching. Option C (Lambda invoking Run Command sequentially) adds complexity without leveraging Patch Manager's built-in scheduling. Option D (manual SSH) is not automated.

Answer

Update the CloudFormation stack to replace instances with new AMIs.

Answer

Use AWS Lambda to invoke Run Command on each instance sequentially.

Answer

Manually connect to each instance via SSH and apply patches.

Question 3

An SAP system experiences an unplanned failover of the HANA database. The database administrator needs to investigate the root cause. Which AWS service should be used to analyze the timeline of events leading to the failover?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail. AWS CloudTrail records API calls and events, which can help trace actions leading to failover. Option B (Amazon CloudWatch Logs) collects logs but not API activity. Option C (Amazon VPC Flow Logs) captures network traffic. Option D (AWS Config) tracks configuration changes but not real-time events.

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Logs

Answer

Amazon VPC Flow Logs

Answer

AWS Config

Question 4

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 5

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. (BurstCreditBalance) is correct because the BurstCreditBalance metric indicates the remaining burst credits for an EFS file system. When burst credits are exhausted, throughput is throttled. Option A (PercentIOLimit) is not a standard CloudWatch metric for EFS. Option C (DataReadIOBytes) measures the number of bytes read, not throttling. Option D (MeteredIOBytes) measures the metered I/O size, not directly related to throttling.

Answer

PercentIOLimit

Answer

DataReadIOBytes

Answer

MeteredIOBytes

Question 6

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.. ACM allows you to export a certificate (including the private key) using the AWS CLI with the `export-certificate` command. This exported certificate can then be installed manually on the EC2 instance running SAP Web Dispatcher. Option B is incorrect because ACM certificates cannot be downloaded directly as files; they must be exported via the CLI or SDK. Option C is incorrect because ACM does not natively support automatic push of certificates to EC2 instances. Option D is incorrect because associating the certificate with an Application Load Balancer is an alternative approach but not required; the question asks how to deploy the certificate directly to the Web Dispatcher on EC2, not via a load balancer.

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 7

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 C and E are correct. A cross-region read replica for Aurora PostgreSQL provides near-real-time replication, meeting the 15-minute RPO. Pre-provisioning EC2 instances with the SAP application stack in the DR region reduces RTO to within 2 hours. Option A (single-region Multi-AZ) does not provide DR across regions. Option B (S3 cross-region replication for logs) is not sufficient for database recovery. Option D (daily snapshots copied to DR) would exceed the 15-minute RPO.

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 8

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, B, and C are correct. Small I/O operations cause high IOPS but low throughput (A). Lock contention or thread contention can reduce throughput by causing waiting times (B). EBS volume throughput limits can cap the actual throughput even if IOPS are high (C). Option D is incorrect because EBS optimization is already enabled. Option E is incorrect because a large block size would increase throughput, not cause low throughput.

Answer

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

Answer

The EBS volume is configured with a large block size.

Question 9

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. AWS CloudTrail logs API calls to create, modify, or delete EC2 instances. Amazon CloudWatch Logs can store and analyze the CloudTrail logs for auditing. Option B (Amazon S3 server access logs) logs access to S3 buckets, not EC2 API calls. Option C (AWS Config) tracks configuration changes but does not log all API calls. Option E (Amazon VPC Flow Logs) captures network traffic, not API calls.

Answer

Amazon S3 server access logs

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon VPC Flow Logs

Question 10

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.. Modifying the volume type from gp2 to gp3 allows you to independently adjust IOPS and throughput settings without downtime, directly addressing the performance issue. Option A is incorrect because EBS optimization is already enabled on the instance by default for certain instance types, and the issue is with volume performance, not instance optimization. Option B is incorrect because increasing the volume size to improve baseline IOPS does not address the specific throughput issue and may not be sufficient, and it also requires resizing the file system, which can cause downtime. Option D is incorrect because stopping the instance to increase volume size introduces downtime, and it is unnecessary when a no-downtime solution like gp3 exists.

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 11

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.. Moving the EFS file system to the One Zone storage class places the data in the same Availability Zone as the EC2 instances, reducing network latency for the SAP transport directory. Option E is correct because switching the performance mode to Max I/O increases the parallel processing capability of the file system, which reduces latency during peak hours. Option A is incorrect because Bursting Throughput mode is the default and does not specifically address high latency; it provides a baseline throughput with bursting credits. Option C is incorrect because Standard-IA is an infrequent access storage class with higher retrieval latencies, unsuitable for a continuously used transport directory. Option D is incorrect because provisioned throughput increases throughput capacity but does not directly reduce latency; Max I/O performance mode is the intended solution for latency reduction.

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 12

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

Attach an additional gp2 volume and use it for temporary data.. Attaching an additional gp2 volume and moving temporary data to it offloads I/O from the primary HANA data volume, effectively increasing the total IOPS available to the database without changing the size of the original volume. This reduces the I/O bottleneck and improves performance.

Option A (EBS optimization) improves network bandwidth but does not increase the volume's IOPS.

Option B (st1) is throughput-optimized and unsuitable for low-latency database workloads like SAP HANA.

Option C (increasing volume size) directly violates the requirement of not changing the volume size.

Answer

Enable EBS optimization on the EC2 instance.

Answer

Change the volume type to st1 (throughput optimized).

Answer

Modify the volume to increase its size to 1,000 GB.

Question 13

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

Use an Elastic IP address and reassign it during failover using a script.. An Elastic IP address can be used as a virtual IP for SAP ASCS/ERS failover. By associating the Elastic IP with the active EC2 instance in one Availability Zone, and having a script (e.g., a watchdog process) automatically reassociate the Elastic IP to the standby instance upon failure, you can achieve virtual IP failover. This is a common pattern on AWS for SAP high availability when using shared file systems. Option B is incorrect because Amazon Route 53 provides DNS failover, not virtual IP management; DNS time-to-live (TTL) delays make it unsuitable for fast failover in SAP environments. Option C is incorrect because an Application Load Balancer operates at Layer 7 and does not provide a static IP for SAP protocols. Option D is incorrect because Classic Load Balancer is deprecated and lacks the required static IP failover capability.

Answer

Configure Amazon Route 53 with failover routing and health checks for the virtual IP.

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 14

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

Answer

Amazon Inspector

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 15

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.. Using EBS-optimized instances with dedicated EBS bandwidth reduces contention and latency, improving write performance for SAP HANA log. Option A is wrong because changing to st1 is not ideal for log writes; st1 is optimized for throughput, not low latency, and has variable performance. Option B is wrong because increasing volume size increases baseline IOPS for gp2 but does not directly address write latency; latency is influenced more by burst credits and instance EBS bandwidth. Option C is wrong because enabling Multi-Attach does not reduce latency; it allows multiple instances to attach the same volume but can introduce contention.

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.