PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Test 28 — 15 Questions

Question 1

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?

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

Accepted Answer

Configure the SAP HANA Backint agent to back up directly to Amazon S3.. The SAP HANA Backint agent allows direct backup to Amazon S3, providing a native and efficient method for consistent HANA backups. Option A is incorrect because copying data files to an EBS volume in another AZ does not ensure database consistency and is not a proper backup method for HANA. Option C is incorrect because AWS Backup does not natively support application-consistent backups for SAP HANA databases. Option D is incorrect because EBS snapshots are not crash-consistent for HANA and do not guarantee point-in-time recovery for the database.

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 2

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.. SAP HANA scale-out supports rolling updates; rebooting one node at a time allows the database to remain operational during the patching process. Option B is wrong because taking EBS snapshots is a backup step, not a method to apply the patch with minimal downtime. Option C is wrong because creating an AMI and launching a new instance introduces unnecessary complexity and still causes downtime for the master node. Option D is wrong because stopping all instances results in full downtime, which contradicts the goal of minimizing downtime.

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.

Question 3

A company is running SAP on AWS and wants to automate the deployment of new SAP application servers. The company uses AWS CloudFormation to manage infrastructure. Which AWS service should they use to run custom scripts during the CloudFormation stack creation to configure the SAP application?

Accepted Answer

AWS Lambda. AWS CloudFormation supports custom resources, which can invoke AWS Lambda functions to run custom scripts during stack creation, making it suitable for configuring SAP applications. Option A is wrong because AWS Systems Manager Run Command is not directly integrated into CloudFormation as a custom resource; it can be invoked via Lambda or other means but not natively. Option B is wrong because AWS CodeDeploy is used for code deployments to existing instances, not for initial configuration during CloudFormation stack creation. Option D is wrong because AWS OpsWorks is a configuration management service using Chef/Puppet, not directly integrated with CloudFormation for running custom scripts.

Answer

AWS Systems Manager Run Command

Answer

AWS CodeDeploy

Answer

AWS OpsWorks

Question 4

A company is running SAP HANA on AWS and wants to implement a disaster recovery strategy with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 2 hours. The primary site is in us-east-1, and the DR site is in us-west-2. Which two actions should the company take to meet these objectives? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Set up SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) in async mode between the two regions.. SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) in async mode can achieve an RPO of less than 15 minutes by continuously replicating log data to the DR region. Option E is correct because pre-configuring EC2 instances with the same SAP HANA software and configuration in the DR region minimizes the time needed to bring up the DR system, helping meet the 2-hour RTO. Option B is incorrect because daily snapshots cannot achieve a 15-minute RPO. Option C is incorrect because AWS CloudEndure Disaster Recovery is not optimized for SAP HANA and may not meet the RPO/RTO requirements. Option D is incorrect because AWS Backup does not support HANA log replication and cannot achieve the required RPO.

Answer

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

Answer

Use AWS CloudEndure Disaster Recovery to replicate the entire server.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to schedule cross-region backups of the HANA database.

Question 5

A company runs SAP NetWeaver on AWS and uses a Network Load Balancer (NLB) to distribute traffic to multiple application servers. The operations team notices that the NLB is not properly routing traffic to healthy targets. Which three steps should the team take to diagnose the issue? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Confirm that the target instances are registered in the target group and are in the Available state.. Target instances must be registered in the target group and in the Available state for traffic to be routed to them. Option B is correct: Security group rules on target instances must allow traffic from the NLB's subnet for health checks and client traffic. Option C is correct: Health check settings (ping path, port, protocol) must be correctly configured so the NLB can determine target health. Option D is wrong: Cross-zone load balancing distributes traffic across all enabled Availability Zones but does not fix routing to healthy targets. Option E is wrong: CloudWatch metrics can show anomalies but are not a primary diagnostic step for routing to healthy targets; they are more useful for monitoring after initial configuration.

Answer

Enable cross-zone load balancing on the NLB.

Answer

Review the CloudWatch metrics for the NLB to see if there are any anomalies.

Question 6

A company is running SAP HANA on AWS and uses multiple EBS volumes for data and log storage. The company wants to encrypt all data at rest. Which three steps are required to ensure encryption of all EBS volumes? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Use a custom AWS Key Management Service (KMS) key for encryption.. Using a custom AWS KMS key allows granular control over encryption of EBS volumes. Option D is correct because enabling EBS encryption by default ensures all new volumes are encrypted automatically. Option E is correct because for existing unencrypted volumes, you must create an encrypted snapshot and restore from it to encrypt the volume. Option B is incorrect because you cannot enable encryption on a snapshot after creation; encryption must be set when creating the snapshot copy. Option C is incorrect because the EBS-optimized attribute relates to network performance, not encryption.

Answer

Enable encryption on the EBS snapshots after creation.

Answer

Launch EC2 instances with the EBS-optimized attribute set.

Question 7

A company is running SAP on AWS and uses CloudWatch to monitor the SAP HANA database. The database administrator wants to create a dashboard that shows the current memory utilization of all HANA instances. Which CloudWatch feature should they use?

Accepted Answer

CloudWatch Dashboards. CloudWatch Dashboards (Option D) allow you to create custom views that display metrics from multiple sources, including memory utilization from all HANA instances, in a single pane. Option A (CloudWatch Logs) is for collecting and storing log data, not for visualizing metrics. Option B (CloudWatch Alarms) is used to trigger actions based on metric thresholds, not for creating dashboards. Option C (CloudWatch Events) is for event-driven automation, not for metric visualization.

Answer

CloudWatch Logs

Answer

CloudWatch Alarms

Answer

CloudWatch Events

Question 8

An administrator created the IAM policy shown in the exhibit for the operations team. The team needs to create snapshots of EBS volumes that have the tag 'Name' with a value starting with 'SAP-HANA-'. However, the policy is not working as expected. What is the most likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The 'ec2:CreateSnapshot' action does not support the 'ec2:ResourceTag' condition key.. The ec2:CreateSnapshot action does not support the ec2:ResourceTag condition key. Condition keys must be supported by the action. Option A is incorrect because the resource ARN is correct for volumes. Option B is incorrect because the action 'ec2:CreateSnapshot' is correct; the plural form is not valid. Option C is incorrect because 'ec2:ResourceTag' is the proper format for EC2 resource tags, but this condition key is not supported for the ec2:CreateSnapshot action.

Answer

The resource ARN is incorrect; it should specify the snapshot resource type.

Answer

The action 'ec2:CreateSnapshot' should be 'ec2:CreateSnapshots' (plural).

Answer

The condition key should be 'aws:ResourceTag' instead of 'ec2:ResourceTag'.

Question 9

An administrator runs the command shown in the exhibit to check the status of an EBS volume attached to an SAP HANA instance. The volume is 200 GB gp3 and is attached to instance i-0a1b2c3d4e5f67890. The administrator wants to increase the I/O performance. The volume is currently set to 3000 IOPS (baseline for gp3). Which action will increase IOPS without downtime?

Accepted Answer

Modify the volume's IOPS setting to a higher value (e.g., 6000) using the modify-volume API.. Gp3 volumes allow modifying IOPS independently of size without detaching or downtime. Option B is incorrect because increasing the size does not directly increase IOPS; gp3 IOPS can be modified independently. Option C is incorrect because changing to io2 Block Express would require detaching or stopping the instance, causing downtime. Option D is incorrect because creating a new volume from a snapshot requires detaching the original volume, causing downtime, and does not directly increase IOPS on the existing volume.

Answer

Detach the volume, increase the size to 500 GB, and reattach.

Answer

Modify the volume type to io2 Block Express and increase IOPS.

Answer

Take a snapshot of the volume and create a new volume with higher IOPS from the snapshot.

Question 10

A company is running an SAP HANA database on an AWS EC2 instance. The system administrator needs to ensure that the database logs are automatically backed up to Amazon S3 and retained for 30 days. Which combination of AWS services can achieve this with minimal operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Use an S3 Lifecycle Policy to transition logs to S3 Glacier after 30 days.. An S3 Lifecycle Policy can automatically transition logs to S3 Glacier after 30 days, providing a cost-effective long-term storage option with minimal operational overhead. Option A is incorrect because CloudWatch Logs stores logs in CloudWatch, not S3, and does not automatically back up database logs to S3. Option C is incorrect because S3 Standard-IA is optimized for infrequently accessed data that requires rapid access, not for archival retention; transitioning logs to Standard-IA after 30 days does not provide the cost benefits of Glacier for data that may need to be retained beyond the initial 30-day period. Option D is incorrect because AWS Backup is designed for backing up entire EC2 instances, not individual log files.

Answer

Use Amazon CloudWatch Logs with a retention policy of 30 days.

Answer

Use an S3 Lifecycle Policy to transition logs to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to schedule backups of the EC2 instance.

Question 11

An SAP system running on AWS experiences periodic performance degradation. Analysis shows that the issue occurs when an on-premises monitoring system polls the SAP application server. Which AWS service can help mitigate this by caching or throttling requests?

Accepted Answer

AWS WAF. (AWS WAF) is correct because AWS WAF can rate-limit incoming requests from specific IP addresses, reducing the load caused by frequent polling from the on-premises monitoring system. Option A (Amazon Route 53) is a DNS service and cannot throttle or cache application-level requests. Option C (Amazon CloudFront) caches content but is not designed for application-level throttling of requests to an SAP application server. Option D (Elastic Load Balancing) distributes traffic but does not provide request throttling or rate limiting.

Answer

Amazon Route 53

Answer

Amazon CloudFront

Answer

Elastic Load Balancing

Question 12

A company wants to automate the start and stop of SAP EC2 instances during non-business hours to reduce costs. Which AWS service is best suited for this task?

Accepted Answer

AWS Instance Scheduler. (AWS Instance Scheduler) is correct because it is a dedicated solution to automate instance start/stop on a schedule. Option A (AWS Auto Scaling) is for scaling based on demand, not scheduling. Option B (Amazon CloudWatch Events) can trigger Lambda but requires custom code. Option D (AWS Systems Manager) can run commands but is not purpose-built for scheduling.

Answer

AWS Auto Scaling

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Events

Answer

AWS Systems Manager

Question 13

An SAP system uses a Multi-AZ RDS for Oracle instance. During a recent failover, the application experienced a long outage because the SAP application server did not automatically reconnect to the new database endpoint. What is the most efficient way to resolve this issue?

Accepted Answer

Reduce the DNS TTL for the RDS endpoint and ensure the application re-resolves DNS on connection failure.. The RDS endpoint remains the same after failover; the issue is DNS caching. Reducing the TTL ensures the application picks up the new IP quickly. Option B (rebooting) is disruptive and not a fix. Option C (modifying the connection string) is not needed. Option D (using a load balancer) adds complexity and latency.

Answer

Reboot the application server after every failover.

Answer

Deploy an Application Load Balancer in front of the RDS instance.

Answer

Modify the application connection string to use the standby instance IP directly.

Question 14

A company needs to monitor the CPU utilization of SAP EC2 instances and send an alert if it exceeds 90% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Alarms. Amazon CloudWatch Alarms (option B) monitor metrics like CPU utilization and can trigger actions such as sending alerts when a threshold is exceeded for a specified duration. Option A (AWS Config) is used for configuration compliance and inventory. Option C (AWS Trusted Advisor) provides best-practice checks. Option D (AWS CloudTrail) is for API auditing and governance.

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Question 15

An SAP system is deployed on AWS using a shared account structure. The security team requires that all changes to SAP security groups be logged and alerted. Which combination of AWS services should be used?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail with Amazon CloudWatch Events. AWS CloudTrail logs all API calls, including changes to security groups (e.g., AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress, RevokeSecurityGroupEgress). Amazon CloudWatch Events can be configured to filter these specific API calls and trigger alerts via SNS or other targets, enabling real-time logging and alerting. Option A (AWS Config + SNS) can detect configuration changes but is not real-time and does not capture API-level details. Option C (Amazon Inspector) is for vulnerability assessment, not change logging. Option D (Amazon GuardDuty) is for threat detection, not security group change monitoring.

Answer

AWS Config with an SNS topic

Answer

Amazon Inspector with Amazon SNS

Answer

Amazon GuardDuty with Amazon SNS