PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Test 34 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company uses SAP NetWeaver with an Oracle database on EC2. The operations team wants to automate the patching of the operating system while ensuring minimal downtime. Which AWS Systems Manager capability should be used?

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

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager. AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager is the capability designed to automate the process of patching operating systems and applications across EC2 instances and on-premises servers. It uses patch baselines, maintenance windows, and compliance reporting to apply patches with controlled timing, which directly addresses the requirement to automate OS patching with minimal downtime.

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AWS Systems Manager Automation

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AWS Systems Manager Run Command

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AWS Systems Manager OpsCenter

Question 2

An SAP administrator needs to ensure that an EC2 instance hosting SAP HANA is rebooted automatically after a hardware failure. Which AWS feature provides this capability?

Accepted Answer

EC2 Auto Recovery. EC2 Auto Recovery is the correct AWS feature because it automatically recovers an EC2 instance when a hardware failure on the underlying physical host is detected. For SAP HANA workloads, this ensures the instance is rebooted on a healthy host without manual intervention, maintaining high availability for critical database operations.

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Placement group

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Auto Scaling group

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Elastic IP address

Question 3

Which THREE are valid steps when performing a cross-Region disaster recovery failover for SAP HANA using AWS? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Start the SAP HANA database on the secondary instance. Option B is correct because after the replicated data is available and the primary is unavailable, the SAP HANA database must be started (or taken over) on the secondary instance in the DR Region to resume service. Option D is correct because cross-Region disaster recovery for SAP HANA relies on SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) configured between the primary and secondary Regions so that data is continuously replicated to the DR site. Option E is correct because clients and applications must be redirected to the secondary instance, typically by updating DNS records (e.g., a CNAME or Route 53 record) to point to the DR endpoint. Option A is not a required failover step; EBS snapshots are a backup mechanism, not the cross-Region replication method used for HSR-based DR failover. Option C is not required for failover and may not even be possible if the primary Region has failed; stopping the primary database is not a prerequisite for bringing up the secondary.

Answer

Create an EBS snapshot of the primary database volume

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Stop the SAP HANA database on the primary instance

Question 4

Which TWO services can be used to centrally manage and enforce backup policies for SAP systems on AWS? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager. Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) automates the creation, retention, and deletion of EBS snapshots and EBS-backed AMIs. For SAP systems, you can use DLM to enforce backup policies for the underlying EBS volumes (e.g., /usr/sap, /sapmnt, data volumes) by scheduling snapshots and applying retention rules. AWS Backup provides a centralized, policy-based backup service that supports SAP HANA databases (via Backint integration) and EC2 instances, enabling you to define backup plans, assign resources, and enforce compliance across your SAP landscape.

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AWS CloudFormation

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AWS Config

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Amazon S3

Question 5

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?

Accepted Answer

Stop the instance from the AWS Management Console.. Stopping an EC2 instance from the AWS Management Console preserves the data on attached EBS volumes. The instance can be started later, and the EBS volumes are reattached, ensuring no data loss. This is the standard procedure for maintenance.

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Hibernate the instance from the AWS Management Console.

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Terminate the instance from the AWS Management Console.

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Reboot the instance from the AWS Management Console.

Question 6

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 with a maintenance window automates patching of SAP application servers, applies patches during defined windows, and ensures high availability by patching instances in a controlled manner. It is the most efficient and native AWS approach.

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Update the CloudFormation stack to replace instances with new AMIs.

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

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Manually connect to each instance via SSH and apply patches.

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.. Option C is correct because a cross-region read replica of Aurora PostgreSQL continuously replicates changes to the DR region, giving an RPO of typically under a minute (well within 15 minutes) and allowing the replica to be promoted to a writable primary in minutes, satisfying the 2-hour RTO. Option E is correct because pre-provisioning the EC2 instances with the SAP application stack already installed and configured in the DR region means the application tier is ready to start immediately, avoiding the hours of build/install time that would otherwise break the 2-hour RTO. Option A is not appropriate because a single-region Multi-AZ deployment only protects against an Availability Zone failure, not a full region outage, so it cannot serve as a cross-region DR strategy. Option B does not belong because replicating application log files to S3 does not restore the database or application tier and does not by itself meet the RPO/RTO targets. Option D is not suitable because daily snapshots yield an RPO of up to 24 hours, far exceeding the required 15-minute RPO.

Answer

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

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

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

Question 8

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 AWS CloudTrail events (via the default event bus) and apply rules to filter for specific API calls, then route matching events to targets such as SNS, Lambda, or SQS for real-time notification. This is the standard serverless pattern for real-time CloudTrail alerting.

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Amazon Inspector

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AWS Config

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AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 9

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.. Configuring the SAP HANA Backint agent to back up directly to Amazon S3 meets the requirements because it provides native HANA backup integration with S3 for long-term retention and allows recovery within the 4-hour RTO. Backint is the standard SAP HANA API for third-party backup tools, and AWS supports it via the AWS Backint agent.

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

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

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Take daily EBS snapshots of the HANA volumes.

Question 10

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 allow you to create customizable views of your CloudWatch metrics, including memory utilization of SAP HANA instances, in a single pane of glass. You can add widgets for each HANA instance's memory metrics and arrange them as needed. This is the correct feature for creating a dashboard that shows current memory utilization across all instances.

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CloudWatch Logs

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CloudWatch Alarms

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CloudWatch Events

Question 11

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.. For an EBS gp3 volume, IOPS and throughput can be modified independently of volume size using the ModifyVolume API (or 'aws ec2 modify-volume --iops'). gp3 allows IOPS from 3,000 to 16,000 and throughput from 125 to 1,000 MiB/s, and changes take effect without detaching the volume or downtime. Increasing IOPS from 3,000 to 6,000 is a valid online modification.

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

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

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

Question 12

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.. Multi-AZ RDS failover works by promoting the standby and repointing the DNS CNAME of the DB endpoint to the new primary. Because the endpoint name stays the same but the resolved IP changes, the application must re-resolve DNS and reconnect. Lowering the DNS TTL and ensuring the client re-resolves on connection failure is the efficient, application-side fix that lets SAP reconnect automatically without manual intervention.

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Reboot the application server after every failover.

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

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

Question 13

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.

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AWS Config

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AWS Trusted Advisor

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AWS CloudTrail

Question 14

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 (AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress, RevokeSecurityGroupIngress, etc.). Amazon CloudWatch Events (now EventBridge) can then match those CloudTrail events using an event pattern and trigger alerts via SNS or Lambda. This combination provides both logging and alerting for security group changes, meeting the security team's requirement.

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AWS Config with an SNS topic

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Amazon Inspector with Amazon SNS

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Amazon GuardDuty with Amazon SNS

Question 15

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.. The most effective way to reduce latency between application and database tiers in the same VPC but different Availability Zones is to move both tiers into the same Availability Zone. Network latency between AZs is typically 1-2 milliseconds, but for latency-sensitive SAP workloads, even this small delay can impact performance. Co-locating the tiers in the same AZ eliminates cross-AZ network hops, providing the lowest possible latency.

Answer

Add an Application Load Balancer between tiers.

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Increase the bandwidth of the EC2 instances.

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Enable AWS Direct Connect.