PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Test 9 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An SAP administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue on an SAP application server. The administrator wants to collect detailed metrics about the EC2 instance's memory usage. Which TWO AWS services can be used to collect memory metrics? (Choose TWO.)

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

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Agent. Amazon CloudWatch Agent (option C) can be installed on EC2 instances to collect memory metrics and send them to CloudWatch. AWS Systems Manager Run Command (option D) can be used to run scripts on the instance to collect memory data and push custom metrics to CloudWatch. AWS CloudTrail (option A) logs API calls, not memory usage. AWS X-Ray (option B) is for tracing requests, not memory. AWS Config (option E) records configuration changes, not performance metrics.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS X-Ray

Answer

AWS Config

Question 2

A company runs an SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance with a large EBS volume. The operations team receives alerts that the volume's burst balance has dropped to 10%. Which action should be taken to prevent performance degradation?

Accepted Answer

Increase the volume size to increase the baseline IOPS.. Increasing the volume size increases the baseline IOPS and burst balance replenishment rate. Option A is wrong because io2 volumes do not have a burst bucket; they use provisioned IOPS instead and thus do not experience burst balance depletion. Option C is wrong because EBS optimization improves network throughput but does not affect burst balance. Option D is wrong because converting to gp3 changes the volume type but does not directly address the burst balance issue; gp3 volumes have a baseline performance but may still have burst credits if the volume is small, so the correct action to replenish burst balance is to increase volume size.

Answer

Change the volume type to io2 with provisioned IOPS.

Answer

Enable EBS optimization on the instance.

Answer

Convert the volume to gp3.

Question 3

A company is using SAP HANA on AWS and needs to restore a backup to a new HANA instance. Which AWS service should be used to automate the backup and restore process?

Accepted Answer

AWS Backup. (AWS Backup) is correct because AWS Backup can automate backups of SAP HANA databases using the Backint agent integration, enabling automated backup and restore operations. Option B (Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager) is incorrect because DLM is used to automate creation and deletion of EBS snapshots, not HANA database backups. Option C (AWS CloudFormation) is incorrect because CloudFormation is an infrastructure-as-code service for provisioning resources, not for managing database backups. Option D (Amazon S3) is incorrect because S3 is object storage; while it can store backup files, it does not provide backup automation itself.

Answer

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM)

Answer

AWS CloudFormation

Answer

Amazon S3

Question 4

An SAP administrator notices that the SAP application server is experiencing high memory utilization. The system uses a cluster of EC2 instances. What is the most cost-effective solution to automatically add an additional application server when memory exceeds 80%?

Accepted Answer

Configure an Auto Scaling group with a scaling policy based on a custom CloudWatch metric for memory utilization.. Auto Scaling groups can use custom CloudWatch metrics (e.g., memory utilization) via the CloudWatch Agent to trigger scaling actions. This automates adding instances when memory exceeds 80% without manual intervention. Option B is incorrect because it only sends an email for manual action, which is not automatic nor cost-effective. Option C is incorrect because it scales based on CPU, not memory, so it does not address the memory issue. Option D is incorrect because Elastic Beanstalk is a PaaS service that abstracts infrastructure, but it does not provide a simple way to scale based on memory utilization, and it is not specifically designed for SAP application server clusters.

Answer

Create a CloudWatch alarm that sends an email to the administrator to manually launch a new instance.

Answer

Use an Auto Scaling group with a scaling policy based on CPU utilization.

Answer

Use AWS Elastic Beanstalk to deploy the application server.

Question 5

A company is migrating an SAP HANA database to AWS and needs to ensure high availability with automatic failover. Which solution meets this requirement with the least administrative overhead?

Accepted Answer

Configure SAP HANA System Replication across two EC2 instances in different Availability Zones and use a custom script for failover.. SAP HANA System Replication is the native, widely-used method for high availability with automatic failover. While it requires some initial scripting for failover automation, it has the least administrative overhead among the given options. Option B is not a real AWS service, so it is invalid. Option C offers no automatic failover, and Option D is not designed for database high availability.

Answer

Use AWS SAP HANA Multi-AZ deployment.

Answer

Deploy a single EC2 instance with an EBS volume and take regular snapshots.

Answer

Use an Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic to multiple HANA instances.

Question 6

A company runs SAP HANA on AWS and wants to monitor the system for potential performance issues. Which metrics should be monitored to detect memory pressure?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA memory usage (from SAP HANA metrics). SAP HANA memory usage directly indicates memory pressure, as memory pressure occurs when the HANA database consumes too much memory. Option A is incorrect because network throughput does not measure memory usage. Option C is incorrect because CPU utilization measures processor load, not memory. Option D is incorrect because EBS volume queue length indicates storage I/O latency, not memory pressure.

Answer

Network throughput

Answer

CPU utilization

Answer

EBS volume queue length

Question 7

An SAP administrator needs to patch the operating system of SAP application servers that are part of an Auto Scaling group. What is the best practice to ensure that instances are updated without downtime?

Accepted Answer

Create a new launch configuration with an updated AMI and perform a rolling update using the Auto Scaling group.. A rolling update replaces instances gradually, maintaining capacity. Option A is wrong because it does not address replacement. Option C is wrong because it causes downtime. Option D is wrong because it does not apply to running instances.

Answer

Update the AMI used by the Auto Scaling group launch configuration and manually terminate all running instances.

Answer

Update the AMI and stop the Auto Scaling group, then start it again.

Answer

Install patches on each running instance using AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager.

Question 8

A company runs SAP HANA on AWS and wants to back up the database using Backint integration. Which AWS service is required to store the backups?

Accepted Answer

Amazon S3. Backint for SAP HANA on AWS is an interface that allows SAP HANA to back up directly to Amazon S3. Amazon S3 is the supported storage service for Backint integration. Option A (Amazon S3 Glacier) is an archival storage class and not directly used by Backint for backups. Option B (Amazon EBS) provides block storage volumes, but Backint does not interface with EBS for database backups. Option C (Amazon EFS) is a file storage service and is not compatible with the Backint API. Therefore, Option D (Amazon S3) is correct.

Answer

Amazon S3 Glacier

Answer

Amazon EBS

Answer

Amazon EFS

Question 9

An operations team needs to ensure that all changes to AWS resources related to SAP systems are tracked and audited. Which AWS service should they use?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail. CloudTrail records API calls for auditing. Option B is wrong because Config tracks configuration changes, not API calls. Option C is wrong because CloudWatch is for monitoring. Option D is wrong because Trusted Advisor is for best practices.

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 10

A company is running SAP HANA on AWS and needs to ensure that the database can be recovered to a specific point in time within the last 24 hours. Which backup strategy should be used?

Accepted Answer

Full backups plus log backups every 5 minutes. Full plus log backups enable point-in-time recovery. Option A is wrong because single snapshot does not allow point-in-time. Option B is wrong because full backups only restore to backup time. Option C is wrong because daily full backups only restore to the time of the backup, not point-in-time.

Answer

Incremental backups using Backint

Answer

Daily full EBS snapshots

Answer

Daily SAP HANA full backups

Question 11

Which TWO actions should be taken to improve the performance of an SAP HANA database running on AWS? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Increase the size of the HANA instance to allocate more memory.. Options A and D are correct. Increasing memory (A) directly benefits SAP HANA which is memory-intensive. Using EBS-optimized instances (D) dedicates network bandwidth to EBS, improving I/O performance for HANA data volumes. Option C (ALB) distributes traffic but does not help HANA performance. Option B (termination protection) and Option E (detailed monitoring) are not performance improvements.

Answer

Enable termination protection on EC2 instances.

Answer

Use an Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic.

Answer

Enable detailed monitoring on EC2 instances.

Question 12

Which TWO components are required to set up SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) on AWS for high availability? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

A dedicated replication network interface with low latency.. SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) on AWS requires two EC2 instances in different Availability Zones (B) to provide failure domain isolation, and a dedicated replication network interface with low latency (A) to handle replication traffic separately from client traffic. Shared storage like Amazon EFS (D) is not required because HSR uses direct log shipping from primary to secondary instance, not a shared file system. The replication is done over the network, making shared storage unnecessary.

Answer

An Amazon S3 bucket for storing backup logs.

Answer

Shared storage (e.g., Amazon EFS) for log replication.

Answer

A Network Load Balancer to distribute database connections.

Question 13

Which TWO AWS services can be used to monitor SAP HANA database performance metrics? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch. Amazon CloudWatch is the only AWS service listed that can monitor SAP HANA database performance metrics. SAP HANA Studio and SAP HANA Cockpit are native SAP tools, not AWS services. AWS CloudTrail, AWS Config, and AWS X-Ray are not used for monitoring database performance metrics.

Answer

SAP HANA Studio / SAP HANA Cockpit

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS X-Ray

Question 14

An SAP administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue on an SAP application server. The administrator wants to collect detailed metrics about the EC2 instance's memory usage. Which TWO AWS services can be used to collect memory metrics? (Choose TWO.)

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

Accepted Answer

The Lambda function is not configured with the correct VPC subnet or security group to reach the EC2 instance.. The issue is likely that the Lambda function is not configured with the correct VPC subnet or security group to reach the EC2 instance. Lambda functions running in a VPC require proper networking configuration to interact with EC2 instances in the same VPC. The IAM policy shown allows ec2:StartInstances, ec2:DescribeInstances, and s3:GetObject on the specified resources, so IAM permissions are not the problem. Option A is correct because networking misconfiguration is a common cause of such failures. Options B, C, and D are incorrect as the policy does grant the necessary permissions.

Answer

The policy does not allow ec2:DescribeInstances.

Answer

The policy does not allow ec2:StartInstances.

Answer

The policy does not allow s3:GetObject on the specific backup object.

Question 15

An SAP HANA database is running on an EC2 instance with an attached gp2 volume of 500 GiB. The exhibit shows the volume attributes. The database performance is degrading during peak hours. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The volume's burst balance has been depleted due to sustained high I/O.. Gp2 volumes use a burst bucket that provides credits for I/O above the baseline of 3 IOPS per GiB. For a 500 GiB volume, the baseline is 1500 IOPS. Sustained high I/O consumes burst credits, and once depleted, performance drops to baseline, causing degradation. Option A is incorrect: IOPS are not solely size-dependent; gp2 offers 3 IOPS/GiB baseline, and 500 GiB provides 1500 baseline IOPS, which may be sufficient. Option B is incorrect: EBS optimization is an EC2 instance feature, not a volume attribute; the issue is with the volume itself. Option D is incorrect: while gp3 offers higher baseline performance, the immediate cause here is burst balance depletion, not volume type.

Answer

The volume is sized too small; it needs to be at least 1 TB to provide sufficient IOPS.

Answer

The volume is not EBS-optimized.

Answer

The volume type is gp2 and should be changed to gp3 for better performance.