PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Test 3 — 15 Questions

Question 1

Match the AWS storage service to its characteristic relevant to SAP.

Question 2

Match the AWS service to its function in SAP disaster recovery.

Question 3

A company runs SAP on AWS. During a maintenance window, the SAP application team needs to apply a kernel update that requires a reboot of the SAP application servers. The environment uses an Auto Scaling group for the application tier. What is the BEST approach to minimize downtime?

Accepted Answer

Terminate instances one at a time, allowing the Auto Scaling group to launch new instances with the updated configuration.. Option C is correct because terminating instances one at a time allows the Auto Scaling group to launch new instances with updated configuration, maintaining capacity and minimizing downtime. Option A is wrong because stopping instances suspends billing but does not trigger automatic replacement. Option B is wrong because detaching instances requires manual reattachment. Option D is wrong because doubling desired capacity temporarily increases costs and may not be necessary.

Answer

Stop all instances in the Auto Scaling group, apply the update, and start them again.

Answer

Detach all instances from the Auto Scaling group, apply the update, and reattach them.

Answer

Double the desired capacity of the Auto Scaling group, wait for new instances, then terminate old instances.

Question 4

An SAP system on AWS is experiencing performance degradation. Amazon CloudWatch metrics show high CPU utilization on the application server, but the database server (RDS) metrics are normal. The application team suspects a memory leak. Which action should the operations team take FIRST to confirm the issue?

Accepted Answer

Install the CloudWatch agent on the application server and enable memory metrics.. Option B is correct because CloudWatch cannot see inside the OS without the CloudWatch agent. Installing the agent and collecting memory metrics is the first step to confirm a memory leak. Option A is wrong because CloudWatch does not provide memory metrics by default. Option C is wrong because rebooting is disruptive and does not help diagnose. Option D is wrong because switching to a larger instance is a reactive fix, not diagnostic.

Answer

Review the existing CloudWatch CPU utilization and memory metrics for the application server.

Answer

Reboot the application server and monitor performance after reboot.

Answer

Increase the instance size of the application server to handle the load.

Question 5

A company runs SAP HANA on AWS. The operations team needs to automate the creation of AMI backups for the HANA database server. Which AWS service should they use to schedule and manage these backups?

Accepted Answer

AWS Backup. Option A is correct because AWS Backup is a managed backup service that can schedule AMI backups. Option B is wrong because Systems Manager can automate tasks but is not specifically for backup scheduling. Option C is wrong because CloudWatch Events can trigger Lambda but is not a backup service. Option D is wrong because S3 Lifecycle policies manage object lifecycle, not AMI creation.

Answer

Amazon S3 Lifecycle policies

Answer

AWS Systems Manager

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Events

Question 6

An SAP system on AWS uses a Multi-AZ RDS for SQL Server as the database. During a failover test, the application experienced a 2-minute outage. The application team wants to reduce this downtime. What should the operations team recommend?

Accepted Answer

Enable automatic failover handling in the application's JDBC connection string.. Option C is correct because enabling Multi-AZ with automatic failover in the JDBC connection string allows the application to automatically reconnect to the new primary without manual intervention. Option A is wrong because increasing instance size does not affect failover time. Option B is wrong because a different Multi-AZ configuration does not reduce failover time. Option D is wrong because RDS Proxy is not supported for SQL Server.

Answer

Increase the DB instance size to improve failover performance.

Answer

Configure Multi-AZ with SQL Server Mirroring instead of Always On Availability Groups.

Answer

Use Amazon RDS Proxy to manage connections.

Question 7

An SAP system on AWS is experiencing intermittent connectivity issues between the application servers and the HANA database. The network team has confirmed that the VPC and subnets are configured correctly. What should the operations team check NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Security group rules on the database server.. Option B is correct because security group rules for HANA database default deny inbound traffic; if not properly configured, they can block application traffic. Option A is wrong because NACLs are stateless and less likely to cause intermittent issues. Option C is wrong because route tables typically do not change. Option D is wrong because DNS resolution is not the likely cause of intermittent connectivity.

Answer

DNS resolution for the database endpoint.

Answer

VPC route tables for the application subnet.

Answer

Network ACLs on the database subnet.

Question 8

An operations team needs to monitor the disk space usage of SAP application servers running on EC2. Which combination of AWS services should they use?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch agent and Amazon CloudWatch alarms. Amazon CloudWatch agent is required to collect custom metrics like disk space usage from EC2 instances, as the standard CloudWatch metrics only cover CPU, memory, network, and disk I/O. By installing the agent and configuring it to report disk space metrics, you can then set CloudWatch alarms to trigger notifications when thresholds are breached, enabling proactive monitoring of SAP application servers.

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch and AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Lambda and Amazon DynamoDB

Answer

Amazon S3 and Amazon SNS

Question 9

A company runs SAP on AWS and uses an Application Load Balancer (ALB) to distribute traffic to web dispatchers. The operations team notices that some requests are failing with 503 errors. What is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The target instances are failing health checks.. Option C is correct because 503 errors from an ALB indicate that the target instances are unhealthy or not responding. Option A is wrong because 503 errors are not caused by SSL certificate issues. Option B is wrong because security groups would cause connection timeouts, not 503. Option D is wrong because ALB capacity is automatically scaled.

Answer

The SSL certificate on the ALB has expired.

Answer

Security groups allow too much traffic.

Answer

The ALB is out of capacity.

Question 10

An SAP system on AWS uses a custom AMI for its application servers. The operations team needs to update the AMI to include a new security patch. What is the MOST efficient way to update all existing instances without downtime?

Accepted Answer

Create a new AMI version, update the Auto Scaling group's launch template, and perform a rolling update.. Option B is correct because using a launch template with a new AMI version and rolling update via Auto Scaling group minimizes downtime. Option A is wrong because patching each instance individually is manual and error-prone. Option C is wrong because stopping instances causes downtime. Option D is wrong because creating new instances manually is inefficient.

Answer

Stop all instances, apply the patch, create a new AMI, and start instances.

Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager to apply the patch to all running instances.

Answer

Create a new AMI, launch new instances manually, and terminate old ones.

Question 11

Which TWO actions should an operations team take to ensure high availability for SAP HANA in a single AWS Region?

Accepted Answer

Deploy SAP HANA in a Multi-AZ configuration using HANA System Replication.. Options A and D are correct. A: Multi-AZ deployment provides failover across Availability Zones. D: HANA System Replication with automatic failover ensures data consistency and failover. Option B is wrong because a single instance in one AZ does not provide HA. Option C is wrong because backups do not provide automatic failover. Option E is wrong because read replicas are for read scaling, not HA.

Answer

Create read replicas of the HANA database.

Answer

Configure automated backups to Amazon S3.

Answer

Use a single large EC2 instance in one Availability Zone.

Question 12

Which THREE metrics should an operations team monitor to detect performance issues in an SAP HANA database running on EC2?

Accepted Answer

CPU utilization. Options A, C, and D are correct. A: CPU utilization indicates compute pressure. C: Memory usage is critical for HANA as it is an in-memory database. D: Disk I/O indicates storage performance. Option B is wrong because network packets in/out is less relevant for HANA performance. Option E is wrong because swap usage should be minimal in HANA; high swap indicates memory pressure.

Answer

Network packets in/out

Answer

Swap usage

Question 13

Which TWO AWS services can be used to automate the patching of SAP application servers?

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager. AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager (Option B) is correct because it provides a fully managed service specifically designed to automate the process of patching operating systems and applications, including SAP application servers running on EC2 instances. It uses patch baselines to define approved patches and can schedule patching across multiple instances, ensuring SAP systems remain compliant without manual intervention.

Answer

AWS CloudFormation

Answer

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling

Answer

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Question 14

Refer to the exhibit. An SAP HANA instance is running on an EC2 instance. The volume `/dev/sdf` is used for HANA data. The operations team needs to increase the disk size for HANA data without downtime. Which action should they take?

Accepted Answer

Modify the EBS volume size while the instance is running.. Option B is correct. Modifying the EBS volume size while the instance is running is supported for most volume types. Option A is wrong because stopping the instance is unnecessary. Option C is wrong because launching a new instance would require migration. Option D is wrong because adding a new volume and moving data requires downtime.

Answer

Launch a new instance with a larger volume and migrate HANA data.

Answer

Stop the instance, modify the volume size, and start the instance.

Answer

Add a new EBS volume to the instance and move HANA data to the new volume.

Question 15

Refer to the exhibit. An operations team uses an EC2 instance with this IAM policy to manage EBS snapshots for SAP HANA backups. The backup script calls the DeleteSnapshot API for snapshot snap-0abcdef1234567890. What will happen?

Accepted Answer

The DeleteSnapshot API call will be denied.. Option C is correct. The explicit Deny overrides the Allow, so the DeleteSnapshot will be denied for that specific snapshot. Option A is wrong because the Deny is explicit. Option B is wrong because the Deny applies to the specific snapshot. Option D is wrong because the policy is not malformed.

Answer

The snapshot will be deleted because the Deny applies only to other snapshots.

Answer

The snapshot will be deleted because the Allow statement grants permission.

Answer

The policy is invalid and will cause an error.