PAS-C01 Technology Practice Test 15 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A small business runs its SAP Business One on a single EC2 instance in AWS. The database is SAP HANA, and the application is also on the same instance. The company wants to ensure that in the event of an instance failure, they can quickly restore the system from backups. They take daily EBS snapshots of the root volume and the data volume. One day, the instance fails and becomes unreachable. The IT administrator attempts to launch a new instance from the most recent AMI, but the new instance does not have the same private IP address, causing connectivity issues for the company's on-premises systems that use VPN to connect to the SAP server. The company uses a Site-to-Site VPN connection to the VPC. What should the administrator do to ensure that the private IP address is preserved after recovery?

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

Accepted Answer

Create an Elastic Network Interface (ENI) with the desired private IP, attach it to the instance, and after failure, detach it from the old instance and attach to the new instance.. An Elastic Network Interface (ENI) can retain a fixed private IP address. By creating an ENI with the desired private IP and attaching it to the original instance, after a failure you can detach the ENI from the failed instance (or simply launch a new instance and attach the ENI) to preserve the same private IP. This ensures that the on-premises VPN connection, which relies on that IP, continues to work. Option A is incorrect because modifying the subnet's CIDR does not guarantee that the specific IP address remains available; it might still be used by another resource or cause routing issues. Option B is incorrect because creating a new AMI from the failed instance does not preserve the private IP; the new instance launched from that AMI will receive a dynamically assigned IP from the subnet unless you specify a static IP, but that is not part of the AMI process. Option C is incorrect because Elastic IP addresses are public IPs; the VPN connection between on-premises and the VPC uses private IP addresses, so using an Elastic IP would not resolve the private IP connectivity issue.

Answer

Modify the VPC subnet to use a smaller CIDR range to ensure the IP is available.

Answer

Create a new AMI from the failed instance and use that AMI to launch a new instance, specifying the same private IP in the subnet.

Answer

Assign an Elastic IP to the instance and update the VPN configuration to use the Elastic IP.

Question 2

A company is running an SAP HANA database on an r5.8xlarge EC2 instance. The database experiences high memory pressure, and they want to add more memory without downtime. What should they do?

Accepted Answer

Modify the instance type to r5.12xlarge while the instance is running.. You can modify the instance type of a running EC2 instance without stopping it, provided the new type is compatible with the current configuration. In this case, changing from r5.8xlarge to r5.12xlarge increases memory from 256 GiB to 384 GiB, and both are in the same instance family, supporting live resizing. This allows the SAP HANA database to add memory without downtime, addressing high memory pressure.

Answer

Use AWS License Manager to add more memory to the instance.

Answer

Use Amazon RDS for SAP HANA to automatically scale memory.

Answer

Stop the instance and change the instance type to u-6tb1.112xlarge.

Question 3

An SAP system is deployed across multiple Availability Zones using an Application Load Balancer (ALB) for the SAP Web Dispatcher. Users report that sessions are frequently dropped during peak hours. Which configuration change should resolve this?

Accepted Answer

Enable sticky sessions (session affinity) on the ALB target group.. Enabling sticky sessions (session affinity) on the ALB target group ensures that all requests from a user session are routed to the same Web Dispatcher instance. Without session affinity, the ALB distributes requests across multiple Web Dispatcher instances, and if the session state is stored locally on each instance, subsequent requests may land on a different instance that does not have the session data, causing the session to be dropped. This is a common issue during peak hours when the load balancer distributes traffic more aggressively.

Answer

Disable cross-zone load balancing on the ALB.

Answer

Increase the number of Web Dispatcher instances in each Availability Zone.

Answer

Enable deletion protection on the ALB.

Question 4

A company is migrating its SAP ERP system to AWS and wants to use SAP HANA as the database. Which AWS service can be used to automate the installation and configuration of SAP HANA?

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager. AWS Systems Manager provides the capability to automate the installation and configuration of SAP HANA through its Automation and Run Command features, which can execute custom scripts and workflows. Specifically, AWS offers pre-built Automation documents (e.g., AWS-ConfigureSAP) and integration with SAP Landscape Management to streamline SAP HANA deployment on EC2 instances. This makes Systems Manager the correct choice for automating SAP HANA setup in a migration context.

Answer

AWS CodePipeline

Answer

AWS CloudFormation

Answer

AWS OpsWorks

Question 5

An SAP application is experiencing high latency when writing to an Amazon EBS volume. The volume is a gp2 type attached to an m5.4xlarge instance. Which change would improve write performance?

Accepted Answer

Change the volume type to io2 and provision sufficient IOPS.. The gp2 volume's baseline performance of 3 IOPS per GiB (max 16,000 IOPS) is insufficient for the SAP application's write-intensive workload, causing high latency. Changing to io2 with provisioned IOPS ensures consistent, high-performance writes by decoupling IOPS from volume size, directly addressing the latency issue.

Answer

Increase the size of the gp2 volume to 1 TB.

Answer

Change the volume type to st1.

Answer

Enable EBS optimization on the EC2 instance.

Question 6

Which TWO options are valid strategies for backing up an SAP HANA database running on Amazon EC2? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Use SAP HANA Backint to back up to Amazon S3.. SAP HANA Backint is a certified interface for integrating SAP HANA backups directly with Amazon S3, allowing native backup and restore operations without additional infrastructure. Option C is correct because AWS Backup can create crash-consistent EBS snapshots of HANA data volumes, which can be used for recovery if the database is in backup mode or if you use pre- and post-scripts to ensure consistency.

Answer

Use Amazon RDS automated backups for SAP HANA.

Answer

Use Amazon S3 Lifecycle policies to transition HANA backups to Glacier.

Answer

Use EC2 instance store to copy HANA data files.

Question 7

Which THREE factors should be considered when selecting an EC2 instance type for an SAP HANA production system? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

The instance type must have sufficient memory capacity for the HANA database.. SAP HANA is an in-memory database that loads all data into RAM for processing, so the EC2 instance must have sufficient memory capacity to accommodate the HANA database size, including overhead for operations and growth. AWS provides specific EC2 instance types (e.g., x1e, x1, r5, u-6tb1) with large memory configurations tailored for SAP HANA workloads.

Answer

The instance type must have GPU acceleration for HANA analytics.

Answer

The instance type must have a high number of vCPUs regardless of memory.

Question 8

Which TWO AWS services can be used to monitor the performance of an SAP HANA database running on EC2? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager. AWS Systems Manager (SSM) is correct because it provides the Run Command and Inventory features that can execute scripts (e.g., SAP HANA SQL queries) and collect OS-level metrics (CPU, memory, disk) from EC2 instances. Amazon CloudWatch is correct because it can ingest custom metrics from the SAP HANA database (e.g., via the SAP HANA plugin for CloudWatch Agent) and monitor standard EC2 metrics like CPU utilization and memory, enabling performance monitoring and alarming.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Answer

AWS Config

Question 9

An SAP administrator creates this IAM policy for an EC2 instance role used by SAP HANA Backint to back up to S3. The backups are failing with access denied errors for S3 operations. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The policy does not include kms:Encrypt action.. SAP HANA Backint for S3 typically uses Server-Side Encryption with AWS KMS (SSE-KMS) to encrypt backups at rest. The IAM policy must include the `kms:Encrypt` action on the KMS key to allow the EC2 instance role to encrypt objects during upload. Without this permission, the S3 PutObject call fails with an access denied error, even if the S3 actions are correctly allowed.

Answer

The policy does not allow s3:ListBucket action.

Answer

The policy uses a wildcard in the resource ARN for the bucket.

Answer

The policy does not include kms:ReEncrypt action.

Question 10

An SAP HANA administrator runs the AWS CLI command shown in the exhibit. The volume is attached to an SAP HANA server. The HANA database is experiencing low write throughput. Which action would most likely improve performance?

Accepted Answer

Change the volume type to io2 and provision 6000 IOPS.. The AWS CLI command output shows the volume is a gp2 volume with a size of 500 GB. gp2 volumes provide a baseline IOPS of 3 per GB, so this volume has 1,500 baseline IOPS. For SAP HANA workloads requiring high write throughput, gp2's burst model is insufficient. Changing to io2 Block Express with provisioned 6000 IOPS delivers consistent, high-performance IOPS needed for sustained write operations, directly addressing the low write throughput issue.

Answer

Detach the volume and reattach it to a different instance.

Answer

Increase the volume size to 1 TB to double the baseline IOPS.

Answer

Enable EBS optimization on the attached instance.

Question 11

A company runs its SAP ERP system on AWS using SAP HANA as the database. The HANA database is deployed on an EC2 instance with 488 GiB of memory. The system has been running for months, but recently the application team reported that some queries are taking significantly longer than usual. The operations team checks the CloudWatch metrics and sees that the database instance's CPU utilization is consistently above 90% during peak hours. They also notice that the EBS volume used for HANA data files has a read latency of over 20 ms. The volume is a gp3 volume with 16,000 IOPS. The instance type is an x1e.8xlarge. The team suspects that the instance is not optimized for the workload. What should they do to resolve the performance issue?

Accepted Answer

Replace the instance with an x1e.16xlarge instance to increase CPU and memory capacity.. The x1e.8xlarge instance provides 4 vCPUs and 488 GiB of memory, which are insufficient for the workload causing consistently high CPU utilization. Upgrading to an x1e.16xlarge instance increases vCPUs to 8 and memory to 976 GiB, directly addressing the CPU bottleneck and memory pressure. The high EBS read latency may be a secondary effect of the overloaded instance, and additional capacity can help alleviate storage performance issues. Option A is incorrect because changing to gp2 with a larger size does not guarantee lower latency and does not address the CPU constraint. Option B is incorrect because increasing IOPS on the gp3 volume only addresses storage performance, not the compute bottleneck. Option D is incorrect because EBS optimization is enabled by default on x1e instances; there is no additional setting to toggle.

Answer

Change the EBS volume type to gp2 with a larger size.

Answer

Increase the gp3 volume IOPS to 32,000 to reduce read latency.

Answer

Enable EBS optimization on the EC2 instance.

Question 12

A company is planning to migrate its SAP ERP system from an on-premises data center to AWS. The system uses SAP HANA as the database. The current on-premises HANA database size is 1 TB. The company wants to minimize downtime during the migration. The network connection between on-premises and AWS has a bandwidth of 1 Gbps. The company has already set up a Direct Connect connection. They plan to use SAP HANA system replication to replicate the database to an EC2 instance in AWS. However, the initial data transfer will take too long due to the large dataset. What should they do to reduce the initial replication time?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Snowball Edge to physically transfer the initial HANA backup.. Using AWS Snowball Edge to physically transfer the initial HANA backup is much faster than transferring over the network, even with Direct Connect. Option A is wrong because ordering an additional Direct Connect circuit is costly and does not address the time limitation of the 1 Gbps link. Option B is wrong because enabling compression on HANA system replication may help but is still constrained by the available bandwidth. Option C is wrong because setting up a VPN over the internet is typically slower and less reliable than the existing Direct Connect connection.

Answer

Order an additional Direct Connect circuit to increase bandwidth.

Answer

Enable compression on the HANA system replication.

Answer

Set up a VPN connection over the internet for faster transfer.

Question 13

An SAP administrator needs to ensure that all API calls made to AWS services by the SAP application are logged for auditing purposes. The administrator wants to store these logs in Amazon S3 for long-term retention. Which AWS service should be used to capture the API calls?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail. AWS CloudTrail records API calls and can deliver logs to S3. Option A is wrong because CloudWatch Logs is for application logs, not API calls. Option C is wrong because VPC Flow Logs capture network traffic, not API calls. Option D is wrong because Config records configuration changes.

Answer

VPC Flow Logs

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Logs

Question 14

A company runs its SAP Business Suite on AWS with an Oracle database on an EC2 instance. The database is stored on multiple EBS volumes configured as a RAID 0 array. The company wants to migrate the database to SAP HANA on a new EC2 instance. The SAP HANA instance will use EBS volumes for data and log storage. The current Oracle database size is 500 GB. The company needs to minimize downtime during the migration. Which migration strategy should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to migrate from Oracle to SAP HANA.. AWS DMS supports heterogeneous migration from Oracle to SAP HANA, enabling minimal downtime through continuous replication. SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) cannot be used because it only works between HANA systems, not from Oracle. Export/import causes extended downtime, and Application Migration Service is for server-level migration, not database-level.

Answer

Use AWS Application Migration Service to migrate the entire EC2 instance.

Answer

Use SAP HANA System Replication to replicate data from the source Oracle database to the target HANA database.

Answer

Export the Oracle database to a flat file and import into SAP HANA.

Question 15

An SAP system is deployed on AWS using an Auto Scaling group of EC2 instances for the SAP application server layer. The application servers are stateless. The company wants to ensure that when a new instance is launched, it automatically registers with the SAP Web Dispatcher. The Web Dispatcher is configured with an Application Load Balancer (ALB). What is the best way to achieve automatic registration?

Accepted Answer

Attach the Auto Scaling group to an ALB target group.. Attaching the Auto Scaling group directly to an ALB target group ensures that any instance launched by the Auto Scaling group is automatically registered with the ALB. Since the SAP Web Dispatcher is configured behind the ALB, this automatically registers the instance with the Web Dispatcher. Option C is incorrect because user data scripts can be used for initial configuration, but relying on them for registration is less reliable and does not integrate with the ALB's health checks. Option A is incorrect because using CloudWatch Events and Lambda adds unnecessary complexity and latency. Option B is incorrect because AWS Systems Manager State Manager is designed for maintaining consistent state, not for immediate registration upon launch.

Answer

Use Amazon CloudWatch Events to trigger an AWS Lambda function that registers the instance.

Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager State Manager to run a registration script on the instance.

Answer

Configure the EC2 instance's user data to run a script that registers with the Web Dispatcher.