PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Test 29 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is running SAP on EC2 instances with EBS volumes. They need to take daily snapshots of the EBS volumes and retain them for 90 days. Which approach is most cost-effective?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) to automate snapshots and set a retention policy of 90 days.. Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) automates the creation and deletion of EBS snapshots, allowing you to set a retention policy of 90 days. This is cost-effective as old snapshots are automatically deleted. Option B is incorrect because S3 Lifecycle policies manage objects in S3, not EBS snapshots; snapshots are stored in S3 but are managed by DLM or AWS Backup. Option C is incorrect because storing snapshots indefinitely would incur unnecessary costs. Option D, AWS Backup, is a managed service that can be used but may have additional costs compared to DLM, and DLM is specifically designed for cost-effective snapshot management.

Answer

Use S3 Lifecycle policies to transition snapshots to Glacier after 90 days.

Answer

Create a script that takes snapshots daily and stores them indefinitely.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to schedule backups and set retention to 90 days.

Question 2

An SAP system on AWS is experiencing high latency between the application and database tiers. Both tiers are in the same VPC but in different Availability Zones. What is the most effective way to reduce latency?

Accepted Answer

Move both tiers into the same Availability Zone.. Placing both tiers in the same Availability Zone eliminates cross-AZ data transfer latency. AWS data transfer between AZs incurs additional latency compared to within the same AZ. Option B (adding an Application Load Balancer) would add network hops and potentially increase latency. Option C (increasing bandwidth) does not reduce latency; bandwidth affects throughput, not latency. Option D (AWS Direct Connect) is used for on-premises connectivity, not for communication within AWS.

Answer

Add an Application Load Balancer between tiers.

Answer

Increase the bandwidth of the EC2 instances.

Answer

Enable AWS Direct Connect.

Question 3

Which TWO AWS services can be used to automate the patching of SAP EC2 instances? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager. Options A and E are correct. AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager automates OS patching directly on EC2 instances, while EC2 Image Builder creates updated AMIs with patches for SAP workloads. Options B (AWS Backup), C (Amazon Inspector), and D (AWS Config) do not automate patching: AWS Backup is for backups, Amazon Inspector scans for vulnerabilities, and AWS Config audits configuration compliance.

Answer

AWS Backup

Answer

Amazon Inspector

Answer

AWS Config

Question 4

Which THREE components are required to set up a highly available SAP HANA database using AWS services? (Choose 3)

Accepted Answer

Multi-AZ deployment with synchronous replication. Options C, D, and E are correct. A Multi-AZ deployment with synchronous replication (C) provides high availability by replicating data across Availability Zones. A cluster manager like Pacemaker (D) automates failover and manages the cluster. An Elastic IP address (E) provides a static IP that can be remapped to the standby host during failover, ensuring connectivity. Option A (Application Load Balancer) is not required for SAP HANA database HA; it's used for web traffic. Option B (Single AZ) does not provide high availability.

Answer

Application Load Balancer

Answer

Single Availability Zone deployment

Question 5

Which TWO AWS services can be used to monitor the health of SAP application servers? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch. The correct answers are D (Amazon CloudWatch) and E (AWS Systems Manager). CloudWatch can monitor EC2 CPU/memory metrics and SAP application-specific metrics via custom metrics or the SAP Host Agent integration. Systems Manager can run custom scripts for health checks, such as checking SAP service status, and can be used with Automation or Run Command to perform health checks across multiple instances. Option A (Route 53) is for DNS routing and basic IP health checks, not application-level SAP monitoring. Option B (S3) is object storage, not for monitoring. Option C (CloudTrail) is for API auditing, not real-time health monitoring.

Answer

Amazon Route 53

Answer

Amazon S3

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Question 6

A company runs an SAP HANA database on an r5.8xlarge EC2 instance. The operations team notices that the instance's CPU utilization spikes to 100% every night at 2 AM, causing SAP application timeouts. CloudWatch metrics show the spike corresponds to a backup process. Which action should be taken to resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

Move the backup window to an earlier time when the system is less active.. Rescheduling the backup to a less active time reduces CPU contention directly. Option B is wrong because increasing instance size is costly and does not address the underlying scheduling issue. Option C is wrong because disabling backups compromises data protection. Option D is wrong because restarting the instance via CloudWatch alarm is a reactive measure that may cause data loss or downtime and does not fix the root cause.

Answer

Increase the instance size to handle the backup load.

Answer

Disable the nightly backup.

Answer

Implement CloudWatch alarm to restart the instance when CPU is high.

Question 7

An SAP system administrator receives an alert that an EBS volume attached to an SAP application server is at 95% capacity. The volume is 100 GB gp2 and stores log files. What is the MOST efficient way to resolve the space issue?

Accepted Answer

Configure log rotation and move old logs to Amazon S3 Glacier.. Configuring log rotation ensures logs are managed systematically, and moving old logs to Amazon S3 Glacier provides cost-effective long-term storage while freeing up space on the EBS volume. Option A is incorrect because simply increasing the volume size is a temporary fix and does not address the root cause of log accumulation. Option B is incorrect because manual deletion is error-prone and not scalable. Option D is incorrect because attaching an additional EBS volume also provides a temporary solution and adds management overhead without addressing log management best practices.

Answer

Increase the volume size using Amazon EBS Elastic Volumes.

Answer

Delete the oldest log files manually.

Answer

Attach an additional EBS volume for log storage.

Question 8

An SAP HANA database on AWS experiences a failover from the primary to the secondary node. After the failover, the secondary node (now primary) is running on a different AZ. The SAP application cannot connect to the new primary. What is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The application connection string points to the old primary's IP address.. After a failover, the new primary node has a different private IP address than the old primary. The SAP application's connection string likely points to the old primary's IP, so it cannot connect to the new primary. Option A is incorrect because HANA system replication can be configured correctly and still cause connectivity issues if the application does not update its connection information. Option B is incorrect because security groups are attached to instances and can be updated, but the issue is typically the IP address change. Option C is incorrect because EBS volumes are automatically attached during a managed failover; connectivity issues stem from network configuration, not storage.

Answer

HANA system replication is not configured correctly.

Answer

The security group for the new primary does not allow inbound traffic from the app.

Answer

The EBS volumes are not attached to the new primary.

Question 9

A company is running SAP on AWS and needs to patch the operating system of multiple SAP application servers. The servers are in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer. What strategy minimizes downtime?

Accepted Answer

Perform a rolling update by updating the Auto Scaling group's launch configuration with a new AMI.. A rolling update with a launch template allows replacing instances one at a time, maintaining capacity. Option A is wrong because creating a new Auto Scaling group and shifting traffic using Route 53 is more complex and may cause downtime during the traffic shift. Option B is wrong because patching all instances at once via SSM may cause simultaneous reboots, leading to downtime. Option D is wrong because stopping all instances, applying patches, then starting them causes downtime.

Answer

Create a new Auto Scaling group with patched instances and shift traffic using Route 53.

Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager to patch all instances at once.

Answer

Stop all instances, apply patches, then start them.

Question 10

An SAP administrator needs to monitor the free space of EBS volumes across multiple EC2 instances running SAP. Which AWS service should be used to collect and visualize this data?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch. Amazon CloudWatch can collect custom metrics from EC2 instances using the CloudWatch agent, enabling monitoring of EBS volume free space. Option A is incorrect because AWS CloudTrail logs API calls, not system metrics. Option C is incorrect because AWS Config tracks configuration changes, not real-time performance data. Option D is incorrect because AWS Trusted Advisor provides best-practice checks, not real-time monitoring.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 11

An SAP system is experiencing slow performance. The SAP team suspects a memory bottleneck in the HANA database. The database runs on an r5.24xlarge instance with 768 GB RAM. CloudWatch metrics show the HANA memory usage is consistently above 90%. Which action should be taken first?

Accepted Answer

Increase the HANA memory allocation parameter in the global.ini file.. The HANA database may have a memory allocation parameter that is lower than the available physical memory, causing a bottleneck even when RAM is available. Increasing this parameter in the global.ini file allows HANA to use more memory, addressing the issue without scaling up. Option A is wrong because reducing HANA services does not directly increase memory availability for the database; it may reduce workload but not the memory bottleneck. Option B is wrong because upgrading the instance is a more disruptive and costly step that should be considered only after tuning parameters. Option D is wrong because swap space is much slower than RAM and is a temporary fix, not a solution for a persistent memory bottleneck.

Answer

Reduce the number of HANA services.

Answer

Upgrade the instance to a larger memory-optimized type.

Answer

Increase the swap space on the instance.

Question 12

A company has an SAP environment with a recovery time objective (RTO) of 2 hours and a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes. Which backup strategy meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Incremental backups every 15 minutes and log backups every 5 minutes.. Incremental backups (every 15 minutes) combined with log backups (every 5 minutes) allow for a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and can meet the 2-hour recovery time objective (RTO) if the database is appropriately sized and restore procedures are optimized. Option A is incorrect because log backups every 30 minutes result in a potential data loss of up to 30 minutes, exceeding the required 15-minute RPO. Option B is incorrect because weekly full and daily differential backups provide an RPO of up to 24 hours. Option D is incorrect because hourly EBS snapshots do not provide the granularity needed for a 15-minute RPO and restoring from snapshots can be slower than from SAP HANA-native backups.

Answer

Daily full backups to Amazon S3 and log backups every 30 minutes.

Answer

Weekly full backups and daily differential backups.

Answer

Hourly EBS snapshots and continuous log shipping to S3.

Question 13

An SAP system administrator needs to ensure that all API calls made to AWS services by the SAP system are logged for security auditing. Which AWS service should be enabled?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail. AWS CloudTrail logs all API calls made to AWS services, enabling security auditing. Option A is incorrect because AWS Config tracks configuration changes, not API calls. Option B is incorrect because Amazon CloudWatch monitors performance metrics and logs, but does not log API calls specifically. Option C is incorrect because VPC Flow Logs capture network traffic metadata, not API calls.

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch

Answer

VPC Flow Logs

Question 14

A company runs SAP on AWS and needs to implement a disaster recovery (DR) strategy. The primary site is in us-east-1, and the DR site is in us-west-2. The database is SAP HANA. Which approach provides the lowest RPO?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA system replication in synchronous mode across regions.. SAP HANA system replication in synchronous mode across regions provides near-zero RPO (Recovery Point Objective) as data is replicated synchronously to the DR region, ensuring minimal data loss. Option A (asynchronous mode) may have higher RPO due to potential data loss in case of failover. Options B and C (backups to S3 with cross-region replication and EBS snapshots) have significantly higher RPO as they are point-in-time backups, not real-time replication.

Answer

SAP HANA system replication in asynchronous mode.

Answer

Database backups to S3 and cross-region replication of S3 bucket.

Answer

EBS snapshots replicated to the DR region using cross-region snapshot copy.

Question 15

An SAP system administrator is troubleshooting a failed HANA database backup to Amazon S3. The backup job returns an error: 'Access Denied'. Which TWO actions should the administrator take to resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

Review the S3 bucket policy for any deny statements that may block the backup.. Options A and C are correct because reviewing the S3 bucket policy for deny statements that may block the backup is a direct step to resolve an 'Access Denied' error, and checking the IAM role attached to the EC2 instance for S3 permissions is also a primary cause of access issues. Option B is incorrect because S3 Transfer Acceleration improves speed, not access. Option D is incorrect because the KMS key being enabled is not a direct cause of access denied; rather, the IAM role must have permission to use the key. Option E is incorrect because a VPC endpoint is not required if using public S3.

Answer

Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration on the bucket.

Answer

Verify that the S3 bucket's KMS key is enabled.

Answer

Set up a VPC endpoint for S3.