PAS-C01 Technology Practice Test 20 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is running a critical SAP HANA database on a single EC2 instance with a large gp2 EBS volume. They need to ensure high availability with a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of less than 15 minutes and a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of less than 5 minutes. Which solution meets these requirements?

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

Accepted Answer

Configure SAP HANA System Replication in scale-up mode with a standby HANA instance in a different Availability Zone.. SAP HANA System Replication in scale-up mode with a standby instance in a different Availability Zone meets the RTO of less than 15 minutes and RPO of less than 5 minutes by continuously replicating data synchronously or near-synchronously to a standby EC2 instance. This allows automatic failover to the standby instance, ensuring minimal data loss and rapid recovery without relying on EBS snapshots or cross-region replication.

Answer

Deploy the SAP HANA database on Amazon RDS for SAP HANA in a Multi-AZ configuration.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to take daily snapshots of the EBS volume and restore to a new instance in another Availability Zone.

Answer

Use AWS Application Recovery Controller to continuously replicate data to a standby EC2 instance in another region.

Question 2

A company is migrating its SAP ERP system running on Oracle to SAP HANA on AWS. The system has a database size of 2 TB. During migration planning, the team needs to minimize downtime. Which strategy should be used?

Accepted Answer

Use SAP HANA System Replication to initially load data from the source SAP HANA (or migrate using SAP DMO with SUM) and then switch over.. SAP DMO (Database Migration Option) with SUM (Software Update Manager) is the recommended approach for migrating SAP systems to SAP HANA with minimal downtime. It performs a heterogeneous migration directly from Oracle to SAP HANA, using a combination of initial data load and subsequent delta replication to reduce the final cutover window. This method is specifically designed for SAP landscapes and supports near-zero downtime migration scenarios.

Answer

Take a full backup of Oracle, restore to SAP HANA, and then apply incremental logs.

Answer

Use the AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to perform an online migration from Oracle to SAP HANA.

Answer

Perform an export/import using SAP tools while the source database is online.

Question 3

A company is running SAP on AWS and needs to encrypt all data at rest for the SAP HANA database. Which AWS service should be used to manage the encryption keys?

Accepted Answer

AWS Key Management Service (KMS). AWS Key Management Service (KMS) is the correct service for managing encryption keys for SAP HANA on AWS because it provides a centralized, highly available key management system that integrates directly with AWS services and supports envelope encryption. For SAP HANA, KMS can be used to encrypt the EBS volumes, S3 buckets, or other storage where HANA data resides, and it allows you to control key rotation, access policies, and auditing via AWS CloudTrail, meeting the requirement to encrypt data at rest.

Answer

AWS CloudHSM

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AWS Secrets Manager

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AWS Certificate Manager (ACM)

Question 4

A company is designing an SAP HANA disaster recovery solution across AWS Regions. The primary site is in us-east-1 and the DR site is in us-west-2. The database size is 5 TB. The RTO is 1 hour and RPO is 15 minutes. Which method should be used for SAP HANA replication?

Accepted Answer

Configure SAP HANA System Replication in asynchronous mode to the DR region.. SAP HANA System Replication with asynchronous mode can replicate across regions with RPO of seconds to minutes. Option A is wrong because AWS DMS does not support SAP HANA as a target database. Option B is wrong because synchronous mode over long distances introduces high latency and is not feasible for cross-region replication. Option C is wrong because EBS snapshots alone cannot achieve a 15-minute RPO due to snapshot frequency limits and longer recovery time.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to continuously replicate changes.

Answer

Configure SAP HANA System Replication in synchronous mode between the two regions.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to copy EBS snapshots to the DR region every 15 minutes.

Question 5

An SAP system uses an NFS share from an EFS file system for transport files. Recently, the transport directory performance has degraded. Which change would most likely improve performance?

Accepted Answer

Enable Provisioned Throughput on the EFS file system.. Using Provisioned Throughput on EFS ensures consistent performance regardless of file system size. Option A is wrong because increasing burst credits only helps temporarily. Option C is wrong because FSx for Lustre is for high-performance computing, not general purpose NFS. Option D is wrong because moving to S3 would require application changes.

Answer

Increase the burst credit balance by creating more files.

Answer

Migrate the transport directory to Amazon FSx for Lustre.

Answer

Use Amazon S3 with an NFS mount via AWS Storage Gateway.

Question 6

A company is running SAP on AWS and wants to automate the installation of SAP applications using infrastructure as code. Which AWS service should be used to define the infrastructure?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudFormation. AWS CloudFormation allows defining infrastructure as code. Option A is wrong because OpsWorks is for Chef/Puppet. Option B is wrong because CodeDeploy is for application deployment, not infrastructure. Option C is wrong because Elastic Beanstalk is for web applications, not infrastructure.

Answer

AWS OpsWorks

Answer

AWS CodeDeploy

Answer

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Question 7

A company has an SAP HANA database running on an EC2 instance with EBS volumes. The database requires 10,000 IOPS consistently. The current volume type is gp3 with 3000 IOPS. Which change should be made to meet the IOPS requirement?

Accepted Answer

Change the volume type to io2 Block Express and provision 10,000 IOPS.. Io2 Block Express volumes are designed for high-performance workloads and can provision up to 256,000 IOPS, easily meeting the 10,000 IOPS requirement. Option B is wrong because increasing the volume size of a gp3 volume does not automatically increase IOPS beyond the baseline; gp3 IOPS are provisioned independently of size. Option C is wrong because while gp3 can be provisioned up to 16,000 IOPS, io2 Block Express offers consistent low-latency performance needed for SAP HANA. Option D is wrong because instance store volumes are ephemeral and data is lost on instance stop or termination, making them unsuitable for persistent database storage.

Answer

Increase the volume size of the gp3 volume to automatically increase IOPS.

Answer

Increase the IOPS on the existing gp3 volume to 10,000.

Answer

Add an instance store volume and move the data to it.

Question 8

An SAP system needs to send email notifications from the SAP application server running on EC2. Which AWS service should be used?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES). Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is the correct choice because it is a cloud-based email sending service designed specifically for sending transactional and notification emails from applications, including SAP systems running on EC2. SES supports SMTP and API-based integration, allowing the SAP application server to send outbound email notifications reliably without managing on-premises email infrastructure.

Answer

Amazon Pinpoint

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Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)

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Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)

Question 9

A company is planning to migrate its SAP ERP system to SAP HANA on AWS. Which TWO AWS services can be used to assess the current on-premises environment and plan the migration?

Accepted Answer

AWS Migration Hub. AWS Migration Hub provides a single location to track the progress of application migrations across multiple AWS and partner solutions, including SAP HANA migrations. It integrates with AWS Application Discovery Service to collect data about on-premises servers, applications, and dependencies, enabling you to assess the current environment and plan the migration. For SAP ERP to SAP HANA on AWS, Migration Hub helps you visualize the migration status and group servers into migration waves.

Answer

AWS Server Migration Service (SMS)

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AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)

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AWS CloudEndure Migration

Question 10

A company is running SAP HANA on EC2 instances with EBS volumes. They need to ensure data durability and backup. Which THREE actions should be taken?

Accepted Answer

Enable SAP HANA System Replication to a secondary instance.. SAP HANA System Replication provides synchronous or asynchronous data replication to a secondary EC2 instance, ensuring high availability and data durability by maintaining a real-time copy of the HANA database. This is a native SAP feature that protects against instance failure and supports automatic failover, which is critical for production HANA workloads.

Answer

Disable automated backups to reduce costs.

Answer

Use instance store volumes for HANA data.

Question 11

Which TWO AWS services are commonly used to monitor the performance of SAP applications and infrastructure?

Accepted Answer

AWS X-Ray. AWS X-Ray is correct because it helps trace and analyze user requests as they travel through SAP applications, identifying performance bottlenecks and errors in distributed transactions. Amazon CloudWatch is correct because it collects and monitors metrics, logs, and alarms for SAP infrastructure resources such as EC2 instances, RDS databases, and Application Load Balancers, enabling proactive performance management.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 12

A company is running an SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance with Amazon EBS volumes. The database is experiencing high write latency. The storage is configured as two gp2 volumes in a RAID 0 stripe. Which change is most likely to improve write performance?

Accepted Answer

Replace gp2 volumes with io1 volumes provisioned with sufficient IOPS for the workload.. SAP HANA is an I/O-intensive application that requires predictable, low-latency storage performance. gp2 volumes use a burst-bucket model that can lead to performance degradation under sustained high write loads, whereas io1 volumes allow you to provision a specific number of IOPS independently of volume size, ensuring consistent throughput. By provisioning sufficient IOPS for the workload, you eliminate the write latency caused by gp2's burst credit exhaustion.

Answer

Migrate to a RAID 0+1 configuration with four volumes.

Answer

Increase the volume size of each gp2 volume to 1 TB to increase baseline IOPS.

Answer

Move the data to instance store volumes attached to the EC2 instance.

Question 13

A company is designing a disaster recovery (DR) strategy for its SAP environment on AWS. The primary region is us-east-1 and the DR region is us-west-2. The SAP application and database must be recoverable within 4 hours (RTO) and with a maximum data loss of 15 minutes (RPO). The database is SAP HANA. Which combination of services meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Configure HANA System Replication (HSR) between the primary and DR regions, with a standby EC2 instance in us-west-2.. HANA System Replication (HSR) with log shipping provides near real-time data replication to the DR region, achieving an RPO of 15 minutes or less. The standby EC2 instance in us-west-2 can be promoted to primary within 4 hours (RTO) by performing a takeover. Option A is incorrect because EBS snapshots are typically taken every few hours and cross-region copy time adds latency, making it difficult to meet a 15-minute RPO. Option B is incorrect because Amazon S3 cross-region replication for HANA backups is asynchronous and may not ensure consistent log backups every 15 minutes, also requiring manual restore steps that exceed the RTO. Option D is incorrect because AWS DMS does not support SAP HANA as a target for ongoing replication; RDS for SAP HANA is not a supported service, and DMS is designed for homogeneous database migrations, not SAP HANA replication.

Answer

Use Amazon EBS snapshots replicated across regions, restoring in the DR region with a CloudFormation template.

Answer

Back up the HANA database to Amazon S3 and copy the backup to the DR region using cross-region replication.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication to an RDS for SAP HANA instance in the DR region.

Question 14

An SAP system running on AWS is experiencing performance degradation. The system uses a shared file system for /sapmnt and /usr/sap/trans. The file system is hosted on an Amazon EFS file system. Which configuration change is most likely to improve throughput for these file systems?

Accepted Answer

Change the EFS performance mode to Max I/O to support higher levels of aggregate throughput and operations per second.. Amazon EFS Max I/O performance mode is designed for workloads with high throughput and parallel operations, such as SAP shared file systems for /sapmnt and /usr/sap/trans. Option B (Provisioned Throughput) provides consistent throughput but is not specifically optimized for parallel access and may incur additional cost. Option C (General Purpose Burstable) is the default mode, which is suitable for lower throughput workloads and would not improve performance. Option D (Enable burst credits) is not a configurable option; EFS automatically uses burst credits when in Burstable mode, so enabling them is not applicable.

Answer

Increase the Provisioned Throughput of the EFS file system.

Answer

Switch the EFS file system to General Purpose (Burstable) performance mode.

Answer

Enable burst credits on the EFS file system to handle peak loads.

Question 15

A company is troubleshooting an issue where SAP users cannot log in to the SAP GUI. The SAP application server is running on an EC2 instance behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The ALB is configured to use the HTTPS listener on port 443. Which configuration is most likely causing the issue?

Accepted Answer

The ALB is terminating HTTPS connections, but the SAP application server expects unencrypted DIAG protocol.. SAP GUI uses the DIAG protocol over TCP port 3200, not HTTPS. The ALB terminates HTTPS connections, but the backend SAP application server expects unencrypted DIAG traffic, so the protocol mismatch prevents successful login. Option A is incorrect because health checks affect target availability, not user authentication. Option B is incorrect because port 3300 is not the standard DIAG port (3200 is), and security group rules are not the primary cause. Option D is incorrect because stickiness settings influence session persistence but do not block initial login when protocol mismatch exists.

Answer

The ALB's target group is not configured with health checks.

Answer

The security group for the ALB does not allow inbound traffic on port 3300.

Answer

The ALB's stickiness settings are misconfigured, causing session persistence issues.