PAS-C01 Technology Practice Test 2 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is migrating its on-premises SAP HANA database to AWS. The database size is 2 TB, and the acceptable downtime is 4 hours. The company needs to ensure minimal data loss during the migration. Which AWS service should be used for the initial data transfer?

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

Accepted Answer

AWS Snowball Edge. AWS Snowball Edge is used for the initial bulk transfer of large datasets offline, minimizing network bandwidth usage. The 2 TB database can be shipped to AWS within a few days. The acceptable downtime of 4 hours is typically reserved for the final cutover, where incremental changes since the Snowball transfer are synchronized using SAP HANA System Replication or AWS DMS, ensuring minimal data loss. AWS Direct Connect requires setup time and may not meet the 4-hour downtime if used for full transfer over the network. DataSync is for smaller transfers over the network, not for 2 TB offline. Storage Gateway is not optimized for initial large-scale migrations.

Answer

AWS Storage Gateway

Answer

AWS Direct Connect

Answer

AWS DataSync

Question 2

A company runs SAP NetWeaver on AWS and needs to implement a disaster recovery (DR) strategy with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 2 hours. The primary region is us-east-1 and DR region is us-west-2. Which AWS service should be used for SAP HANA database replication?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA System Replication. SAP HANA System Replication with AWS is the recommended approach for database-level DR with low RPO and RTO. AWS Database Migration Service is for migration, not ongoing replication. Storage Gateway is not for HANA replication. EBS Snapshots have higher RPO.

Answer

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)

Answer

AWS Storage Gateway

Answer

EBS Snapshots

Question 3

An SAP system administrator needs to store application logs for a minimum of 3 years for compliance. The logs are currently stored in Amazon S3 Standard and are accessed infrequently after 30 days. Which lifecycle policy should the administrator implement to minimize costs while meeting compliance?

Accepted Answer

Transition to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days, then to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 1 year, and delete after 3 years.. Transition to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days, then to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 1 year, and expire after 3 years. Option A is incorrect because S3 One Zone-IA is not durable enough for compliance logs (only 99.99% durability) and risks data loss in a single AZ failure. Option B is incorrect because transitioning directly to S3 Glacier after 30 days incurs high retrieval costs and minimum storage charges; it is more cost-effective to use Standard-IA first. Option C is incorrect because deleting logs after 30 days violates the 3-year compliance requirement.

Answer

Transition to S3 One Zone-IA after 30 days and delete after 3 years.

Answer

Transition to S3 Glacier after 30 days and delete after 3 years.

Answer

Delete logs after 30 days to save costs.

Question 4

An SAP administrator runs the AWS CLI command shown in the exhibit. What does the output indicate about the RDS instance my-sap-db?

Accepted Answer

The database CPU utilization spiked to 85.3% at 00:10 UTC.. The data points show CPU utilization averages over 5-minute intervals. The second point shows 85.3%, indicating a spike. Option A is incorrect because the command does not show memory metrics. Option B is incorrect because the command does not show connections. Option D is incorrect because the data shows CPU utilization, not database activity.

Answer

The database is idle because CPU utilization is low.

Answer

The database experienced high memory usage.

Answer

The database had a high number of connections.

Question 5

A company runs an SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance with a single EBS volume. The database is experiencing high I/O latency during peak hours. Which solution would provide consistent, low-latency performance without downtime?

Accepted Answer

Replace the existing volume with an EBS io2 Block Express volume.. Replacing the existing volume with an EBS io2 Block Express volume provides consistent, low-latency performance with high IOPS and throughput, specifically designed for I/O-intensive workloads like SAP HANA. This can be done without downtime by using features such as EBS multi-attach or logical volume mirroring to migrate data while the instance runs. Option C is incorrect because the Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) is a network interface for HPC inter-instance communication, not a storage I/O offload solution; it does not directly reduce storage latency. Option A (migrating to instance store) would require data migration and potential downtime. Option D (switching to gp3) may not offer the same level of consistent low latency and high IOPS as io2 Block Express.

Answer

Migrate the database to an instance with NVMe instance store volumes.

Answer

Attach an Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) to the instance to offload storage I/O.

Answer

Switch the volume type to EBS gp3 with maximum throughput.

Question 6

An SAP administrator needs to monitor the memory usage of an SAP HANA database running on an EC2 instance. The administrator wants to receive alerts when memory usage exceeds 90% for more than 5 minutes. Which AWS service should be used to set up this monitoring and alerting?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch with custom metrics. CloudWatch can collect custom metrics from the HANA instance and trigger alarms. Option A is wrong because Trusted Advisor provides best practice checks, not custom monitoring. Option C is wrong because AWS Config is for configuration compliance, not monitoring. Option D is wrong because CloudTrail is for API auditing.

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Question 7

A company is using AWS Systems Manager to automate patching of SAP application servers. The patching process should run during a maintenance window every Sunday at 2 AM. Which Systems Manager capability should be used to schedule the patching?

Accepted Answer

Maintenance Windows. Maintenance Windows allow scheduling of patching operations. Option A is wrong because Automation is for runbooks. Option B is wrong because Patch Manager is for patching but needs a schedule; Maintenance Window triggers it. Option C is wrong because State Manager is for configuration management.

Answer

Automation

Answer

Patch Manager

Answer

State Manager

Question 8

An SAP customer is running SAP HANA on AWS using m5.8xlarge instances. They want to implement a disaster recovery (DR) strategy using a secondary region with a standby HANA instance. Which TWO options should they consider to replicate the HANA data to the DR region? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon EBS Snapshots and copy them to the DR region for periodic restore.. Options B and C are correct. SAP HANA System Replication is the standard method for replicating data between HANA instances across regions. Amazon EBS Snapshots can be copied to another region and used to restore volumes. Option A (AWS DMS) is for database migrations, not ongoing replication. Option D (Amazon EFS) is not suitable for HANA data volumes. Option E (S3 Transfer Acceleration) is not a replication method for HANA.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to continuously replicate HANA to the DR region.

Answer

Use Amazon EFS to replicate the HANA data directory to the DR region.

Answer

Use AWS S3 Transfer Acceleration to continuously upload HANA log files to the DR region.

Question 9

A company is running a web application on EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The instances are in an Auto Scaling group with a dynamic scaling policy based on average CPU utilization. During a flash sale, the application experiences a sudden spike in traffic, but the Auto Scaling group does not scale out quickly enough, causing some requests to fail. Which solution would improve the scaling responsiveness?

Accepted Answer

Add a scheduled scaling action to increase capacity before the flash sale.. A scheduled scaling action proactively increases capacity before the flash sale, eliminating the lag inherent in dynamic scaling policies. Dynamic scaling reacts to metrics like average CPU utilization, which can take minutes to trigger and propagate, causing request failures during sudden spikes. By pre-scaling, the Auto Scaling group has sufficient instances ready to handle the traffic surge immediately.

Answer

Increase the cooldown period for the dynamic scaling policy.

Answer

Decrease the cooldown period for the dynamic scaling policy.

Answer

Disable scale-in to prevent the Auto Scaling group from terminating instances during the sale.

Question 10

A company is migrating a legacy application to AWS. The application uses a custom TCP protocol and requires session persistence. The application runs on a fleet of EC2 instances behind a Network Load Balancer (NLB). The current configuration uses a TCP listener with 'source IP' stickiness. However, some clients are being routed to different instances mid-session, causing application errors. What is the most likely cause and solution?

Accepted Answer

Clients are behind a NAT gateway, so the source IP changes between requests, breaking stickiness. Use a 'stitched' cookie or switch to an Application Load Balancer.. Clients behind a NAT gateway will have their source IP address translated to the NAT gateway's public IP, which remains consistent for all requests from that gateway. However, if multiple clients share the same NAT gateway, the source IP is the same, but the NLB's source IP stickiness is based on the client's source IP as seen by the NLB. If the NAT gateway uses multiple public IPs or if clients are behind different NAT gateways, the source IP can change between requests, breaking stickiness. The solution is to use a 'stitched' cookie or switch to an Application Load Balancer, which supports cookie-based session persistence independent of source IP.

Answer

The NLB does not support source IP stickiness; use a Classic Load Balancer instead.

Answer

The NLB has cross-zone load balancing enabled, which distributes traffic across instances in different Availability Zones.

Answer

The idle timeout of the NLB is too low, causing the NLB to close connections prematurely.

Question 11

A solutions architect is designing a disaster recovery plan for a critical application that runs on Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL. The application requires a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of less than 5 seconds and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of less than 1 minute. Which RDS deployment option meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

A Multi-AZ deployment with synchronous replication.. Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployments with synchronous replication provide automatic failover to a standby instance in a different Availability Zone, ensuring data is committed to both primary and standby before acknowledging a write. This achieves an RPO of effectively zero (less than 5 seconds) and an RTO typically under 1 minute, meeting the stated requirements.

Answer

A single-AZ deployment with cross-Region automated backups.

Answer

A single-AZ deployment with a standby instance manually promoted.

Answer

A Multi-AZ deployment with a Read Replica in a different Region.

Question 12

A company is using AWS CloudFormation to manage infrastructure. The development team wants to deploy a new version of a stack that updates an existing RDS DB instance's DB engine version. The update requires a replacement of the database. Which CloudFormation stack policy setting allows the update to proceed while preventing other resources from being replaced or updated?

Accepted Answer

Set a stack policy that allows updates to the specific RDS DB instance resource.. A stack policy in AWS CloudFormation can be set to explicitly allow updates to a specific resource (e.g., the RDS DB instance) while denying updates to all other resources by default. Since the update requires a replacement of the database, the policy must permit the update action on that exact resource logical ID, ensuring the DB engine version change proceeds without risking unintended modifications to other stack resources.

Answer

Set a stack policy that allows updates to RDS resources only.

Answer

Set a stack policy that denies all updates.

Answer

Set a stack policy that allows all updates.

Question 13

A company is running a stateful application on EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. The instances store session state locally. The group uses a simple scaling policy based on network traffic. The company notices that when instances are terminated during scale-in, active sessions are lost. What is the MOST effective way to preserve session state during scaling events?

Accepted Answer

Use a lifecycle hook to gracefully drain sessions before instance termination.. A lifecycle hook is the most effective solution because it pauses the instance termination process during scale-in, allowing the application to drain active sessions (e.g., by transferring session state to a shared data store like ElastiCache or DynamoDB) before the instance is fully terminated. This preserves session continuity without requiring architectural changes to the application's stateful design.

Answer

Use a step scaling policy instead of a simple scaling policy.

Answer

Increase the cooldown period for the Auto Scaling group.

Answer

Use a launch configuration that enables termination protection.

Question 14

A company is designing a microservices architecture on Amazon ECS with Fargate. The services need to communicate securely and be accessible only within the VPC. Which TWO steps should the solutions architect take to meet these requirements? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Use an internal Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic between services.. An internal Application Load Balancer (ALB) operates within a VPC and does not expose a public endpoint, ensuring that traffic between microservices remains private. It distributes incoming requests to Fargate tasks based on defined rules, enabling secure, internal communication without internet access.

Answer

Attach an Internet Gateway to the VPC and configure route tables for the private subnets.

Answer

Place the Fargate tasks in public subnets to allow them to communicate with each other through the internet gateway.

Answer

Use AWS Cloud Map for service discovery and register a public DNS name for each service.

Question 15

Refer to the exhibit. An IAM policy is attached to an IAM role used by an EC2 instance. The EC2 instance has an Elastic IP address of 203.0.113.5 and is running in a VPC with CIDR 10.0.0.0/16. When the application on the instance tries to upload an object to the S3 bucket 'my-bucket', it receives an Access Denied error. What is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The condition checks the source IP address, but the EC2 instance uses a private IP address within the VPC when communicating with S3 via a VPC endpoint.. The IAM policy condition likely includes an `aws:SourceIp` condition that allows only the Elastic IP address (203.0.113.5). However, when the EC2 instance communicates with S3 via a VPC endpoint, traffic uses a private IP from the VPC CIDR (10.0.0.0/16) as the source IP, not the Elastic IP. This mismatch causes the condition to evaluate to False, resulting in Access Denied.

Answer

The policy does not allow the s3:PutObject action.

Answer

The resource ARN is incorrect; it should be arn:aws:s3:::my-bucket without the asterisk.

Answer

The policy is missing a Deny statement for other IP addresses.