PAS-C01 Technology Practice Test 25 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is designing a disaster recovery (DR) strategy for its SAP HANA database on AWS. The primary site is in us-east-1, and the DR site is in us-west-2. Which TWO actions are required to enable HANA System Replication (HSR) across AWS Regions? (Choose 2)

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

Accepted Answer

Set up a VPN or Direct Connect connection between the Regions for secure, low-latency communication.. Options B and C are correct. Option B is correct because HSR requires low-latency network connectivity between the primary and DR sites, which can be provided by VPN or Direct Connect. Option C is correct because for cross-region HSR, asynchronous replication mode is required since synchronous replication would introduce unacceptable latency over long distances. Option A is incorrect because EBS snapshots are not used for HSR; HSR uses log replication. Option D is incorrect because S3 Cross-Region Replication is not used for HANA data files; HSR replicates log volumes. Option E is incorrect because HSR is a database-level replication, not an application-level load balancer.

Answer

Enable cross-Region replication of EBS snapshots.

Answer

Use S3 Cross-Region Replication to copy HANA data files.

Answer

Deploy an Application Load Balancer in front of the HANA instances in both Regions.

Question 2

An SAP system administrator is planning to migrate an on-premises SAP ERP system to AWS. The system uses Oracle Database. Which THREE AWS services can be used to migrate the Oracle database to Amazon RDS for Oracle with minimal downtime? (Choose 3)

Accepted Answer

AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT). Options C and D are the correct AWS services for migrating an Oracle database to Amazon RDS for Oracle with minimal downtime. Option A (Oracle Data Guard) is not an AWS service; it is an Oracle database feature and does not meet the requirement of being an AWS service. Option B (AWS Snowball Edge) is for offline data transfer, not live migration. Option E (AWS CloudEndure Migration) is for server migration, not database migration. AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT) ensures schema compatibility, and AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) performs continuous replication to minimize downtime.

Answer

Oracle Data Guard

Answer

AWS Snowball Edge

Answer

AWS CloudEndure Migration

Question 3

A company runs its SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance with EBS volumes. The database requires consistent high IOPS and low latency. The system is currently using EBS gp2 volumes, but performance is inconsistent during peak loads. Which TWO steps should the administrator take to improve storage performance? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

Configure multiple EBS volumes in a RAID 0 stripe set.. Options C and D are correct. C: Configuring multiple EBS volumes in a RAID 0 stripe set increases throughput by combining I/O across volumes, which helps with peak loads. D: Migrating to EBS io2 Block Express volumes with provisioned IOPS ensures consistent high IOPS and low latency. A is incorrect because increasing gp2 volume size only raises baseline IOPS but does not guarantee consistent high IOPS during peak loads. B is incorrect because regular EBS snapshots do not improve performance and can degrade it during snapshot creation. E is incorrect because EBS-optimized instances are enabled by default for current generation instances and are not a storage performance improvement step.

Answer

Increase the size of the existing gp2 volumes to increase baseline IOPS.

Answer

Take regular EBS snapshots to improve performance.

Answer

Enable EBS-optimized on the EC2 instance.

Question 4

An SAP administrator executed the AWS CLI command shown in the exhibit. The EC2 instance i-0abcd1234efgh5678 is a SAP HANA database server. Which statement about the storage configuration is correct?

Accepted Answer

The data volume (/dev/sdf) will persist after instance termination.. /dev/sdf has DeleteOnTermination set to false, meaning it will not be deleted when the instance is terminated, preserving the data. Option A is incorrect because /dev/xvda will be deleted. Option B is incorrect because /dev/sdf is an EBS volume, not an instance store volume. Option D is incorrect because the command only shows block device mappings, not the root device type.

Answer

The root volume (/dev/xvda) will persist after instance termination.

Answer

The volume /dev/sdf is an instance store volume.

Answer

The instance is booting from an instance store volume.

Question 5

An IAM policy is attached to a user who manages SAP HANA volumes. The policy is shown in the exhibit. What is the effect of this policy?

Accepted Answer

The user can attach and detach volumes that have the tag Environment=production, but cannot delete any volume.. The first statement allows ec2:AttachVolume and ec2:DetachVolume only if the volume has tag Environment=production. The second statement denies ec2:DeleteVolume for all volumes. Therefore, the user can attach and detach volumes that have the tag Environment=production, but cannot delete any volume. Option A is incorrect because attach/detach are allowed only with the condition. Option B is incorrect because delete is denied for all volumes. Option D is incorrect because the allow statement is conditional on the specific tag value, not just the production environment.

Answer

The user can attach and detach any volume regardless of tags.

Answer

The user can delete any volume.

Answer

The user can attach and detach any volume in the production environment.

Question 6

A company runs its SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance (r5.8xlarge) with 8 EBS gp2 volumes (1 TB each) in a RAID 0 stripe. The database is critical and requires high availability. The current architecture uses a single EC2 instance in one Availability Zone. The company wants to implement a disaster recovery solution with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 4 hours. The DR site must be in a different AWS Region. The SAP HANA database size is 4 TB. The company has a 1 Gbps Direct Connect connection between the primary and DR Regions. The database workload is write-intensive with an average write throughput of 200 MB/s. Which solution meets the RPO and RTO requirements?

Accepted Answer

Set up HANA System Replication (HSR) in asynchronous mode from the primary to a secondary EC2 instance in the DR Region. Use the same instance type and EBS configuration. In case of failure, perform a HSR takeover.. HANA System Replication (HSR) in asynchronous mode can achieve an RPO of seconds, well within the 15-minute requirement. The 1 Gbps Direct Connect connection, with HANA's built-in compression, can handle the 200 MB/s write throughput (approximately 1.6 Gbps uncompressed, compressed to ~800 Mbps or less). Using the same instance type and EBS RAID 0 configuration ensures performance parity after takeover. HSR takeover can be completed in minutes, meeting the 4-hour RTO. Option B is incorrect because EBS snapshots of a RAID array require stopping I/O for consistency, and taking snapshots every 15 minutes is impractical; restoring 4 TB from snapshots would significantly exceed the 4-hour RTO. Option C is incorrect because backing up to S3 every 15 minutes can impact database performance, and restoring from S3 takes longer than 4 hours due to data transfer and re-import time. Option D is incorrect because AWS DMS does not natively support SAP HANA as a target for continuous replication; it is designed for heterogeneous migrations, not HANA-specific replication.

Answer

Take EBS snapshots of the RAID array every 15 minutes and replicate them to the DR Region using EBS snapshot copy. In the DR Region, restore the snapshots to new volumes and attach them to a new EC2 instance.

Answer

Back up the HANA database to Amazon S3 every 15 minutes using the HANA backup tool, and set up cross-Region replication for the S3 bucket. In the DR Region, restore the latest backup to a new EC2 instance.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to continuously replicate changes to a target HANA database in the DR Region.

Question 7

An SAP administrator notices that the SAP application server is unable to establish an RFC connection to the SAP HANA database. The database is running on an EC2 instance in the same VPC. Security groups and NACLs allow all traffic. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The application server is configured to connect to the wrong port number.. The SAP HANA database listens on a specific TCP port, typically 3<instance_number>13 (e.g., 30013 for instance 00). If the application server is configured with a different port number, it cannot establish an RFC connection. Option C is correct because a port mismatch is a common misconfiguration. Option A (overlapping CIDR) would cause routing issues at the network layer, but since security groups and NACLs allow all traffic, this is less likely. Option B (UDP protocol) is incorrect because RFC connections use TCP, not UDP. Option D (reboot) would be temporary and the connection would resume after the database restarts.

Answer

The VPC has overlapping CIDR blocks with the on-premises network.

Answer

The application server uses TCP instead of the required UDP protocol.

Answer

The HANA database instance was rebooted for maintenance.

Question 8

An SAP administrator created the IAM policy shown above to control access to an S3 bucket used for SAP HANA backups. The policy is attached to an IAM role used by an EC2 instance. The instance fails to upload backups. What is the cause?

Accepted Answer

The 'aws:SecureTransport' condition in the Deny statement is incorrectly using 'BoolIfExists' instead of 'Bool'.. The policy uses 'BoolIfExists' for the 'aws:SecureTransport' condition in the Deny statement. 'BoolIfExists' evaluates the condition as true if the condition key exists and matches the specified value, OR if the key does not exist at all. This can cause unintended denials when the 'aws:SecureTransport' key is absent from the request context (e.g., certain internal AWS service calls). Using 'Bool' instead ensures the condition is evaluated only when the key is present, preventing false denials. This mismatch between the intended behavior (deny only when explicitly false) and the actual behavior (deny also when key is missing) is the root cause of the backup upload failure.

Answer

The policy does not allow encryption (SSE-S3) which is required for backups.

Answer

The VPC endpoint ID in the policy does not match the actual endpoint.

Answer

The Deny statement overrides the Allow statement for all actions.

Question 9

A company is migrating its SAP system to AWS and wants to use AWS Backup to manage backups of SAP HANA databases running on EC2 instances. What is the prerequisite for this integration?

Accepted Answer

The HANA database must be registered as a resource in AWS Backup using the Backint agent.. AWS Backup supports HANA databases via the SAP HANA Backint integration. The HANA database must be registered as a resource in AWS Backup, which requires the Backint agent. Options A (SAP HANA in-memory backup) is not a thing. Option B (Dedicated Host) is not required. Option C (not using EBS snapshots) is unnecessary.

Answer

The HANA database must be configured to use in-memory backups.

Answer

The HANA database must not use EBS snapshots for backup.

Answer

The EC2 instance must be running on a Dedicated Host.

Question 10

An SAP system running on AWS uses a shared file system via Amazon EFS for transport directories. The system administrator notices that file operations are slow across multiple application servers. The EFS file system is configured with Bursting Throughput mode. What is the most effective way to improve performance?

Accepted Answer

Switch the file system to Provisioned Throughput mode and set a higher throughput value.. Provisioned Throughput mode allows you to specify a higher throughput level for your Amazon EFS file system, providing consistent performance independent of burst credits. Option B is incorrect: using EFS Access Points does not affect throughput, they enforce access permissions. Option C is incorrect: reducing operations during off-peak hours may conserve burst credits but does not directly increase performance; significant improvement requires Provisioned Throughput. Option D is incorrect: additional mount targets in each AZ do not increase throughput as they share the same file system throughput.

Answer

Use EFS Access Points to enforce a different UID/GID for each application server.

Answer

Increase the burst credit balance by reducing file operations during off-peak hours.

Answer

Create additional mount targets in each Availability Zone to distribute load.

Question 11

A company runs its SAP system on AWS and uses a Multi-AZ RDS for Oracle database for the SAP Central Services (SCS) instance. The SCS instance is currently on a single EC2 instance in one Availability Zone. The company wants to ensure high availability for the SCS service. What should they do?

Accepted Answer

Implement an SAP ASCS/ERS cluster using two EC2 instances and a shared file system.. SAP Central Services (SCS) can be made highly available by implementing an SAP ASCS/ERS cluster using two EC2 instances and a shared file system (such as Amazon FSx for Windows or EBS Multi-Attach) with a floating IP. This provides automatic failover in case of instance or AZ failure. Option B is incorrect because placing the SCS on a larger EC2 instance with EBS snapshots does not provide high availability; it only offers data backup and recovery, not automatic failover. Option C is incorrect because an Application Load Balancer is designed for HTTP/HTTPS traffic and cannot handle SAP-specific protocols used by SCS. Option D is incorrect because the RDS for Oracle database is used for the SAP database, not for the SCS instance; the SCS requires its own file system and cannot run on RDS.

Answer

Place the SCS instance on a larger EC2 instance and use EBS snapshots for recovery.

Answer

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

Answer

Configure the SCS instance on the existing RDS for Oracle database.

Question 12

An SAP administrator runs the commands above to inspect the volumes attached to an EC2 instance that hosts an SAP HANA database. The database log files are stored on /dev/sdf. What is a potential issue with this configuration?

Accepted Answer

The log volume uses gp3, which may not provide enough IOPS for HANA log writes.. Gp3 volumes may not provide sufficient IOPS for HANA log writes, which require high IOPS and low latency. Options B, C, and D are incorrect: /dev/sdf is a standard device name, DeleteOnTermination=false is fine for persistence, and encryption is not shown to be an issue.

Answer

The log volume is attached as /dev/sdf, which is not a standard device name for HANA.

Answer

The root volume will be deleted on termination, causing data loss.

Answer

The log volume is not encrypted.

Question 13

An SAP system uses AWS Direct Connect to connect to on-premises networks. The SAP application servers are in a private subnet with a NAT gateway for outbound internet. The SAProuter instance is behind an Internet-facing Network Load Balancer (NLB). Connections from SAP support to the SAProuter timeout. What is the likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The security group for the SAProuter instance does not allow inbound traffic from the NLB.. The issue is that connections from SAP support to the SAProuter timeout. The SAProuter instance is behind an Internet-facing NLB, which distributes traffic to targets. For the NLB to forward traffic to the SAProuter instance, the instance's security group must allow inbound traffic from the NLB's source IP or security group. Without this rule, the NLB health checks fail and traffic is not forwarded, causing timeouts. Option A (wrong protocol/port) is possible but less likely since the NLB is configured for SAProuter. Option C (Direct Connect advertising) is irrelevant because the connection is from the internet, not on-premises. Option D (NAT gateway) is for outbound traffic only and does not affect inbound connections from the internet.

Answer

The NLB target group is configured with the wrong protocol or port for SAProuter.

Answer

The Direct Connect virtual interface is not advertising the SAProuter's IP address.

Answer

The NAT gateway does not allow inbound traffic from the internet.

Question 14

A company is deploying SAP S/4HANA on AWS and needs to choose the storage for the HANA data volume. Which EBS volume type provides the highest consistent IOPS for this workload?

Accepted Answer

EBS io2 Block Express. EBS io2 Block Express is designed for mission-critical applications like SAP HANA, offering the highest consistent IOPS of any EBS volume type, with up to 256,000 IOPS. Option B (gp3) provides baseline performance but lower maximum IOPS than io2 Block Express. Option C (io1) is an older provisioned IOPS type with lower maximum IOPS (up to 64,000) compared to io2 Block Express. Option D (st1) is throughput-optimized and not suitable for high IOPS workloads.

Answer

EBS gp3

Answer

EBS io1

Answer

EBS st1

Question 15

An SAP administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue on an SAP HANA database running on AWS. The HANA data volume is an EBS io1 volume with 10,000 provisioned IOPS. The administrator notices that the average queue length is consistently above 10, and the average latency is 20 ms. Which TWO actions will most likely improve performance?

Accepted Answer

Increase the provisioned IOPS on the io1 volume to 20,000.. Options B and C are correct. Increasing provisioned IOPS on the io1 volume (Option B) directly addresses the high queue length and latency by providing more I/O capacity. Moving the database to a larger EC2 instance type (Option C) increases the dedicated EBS bandwidth, removing a potential throughput bottleneck at the instance level. Option A (NVMe instance store) is not suitable for persistent SAP HANA data. Option D (RAID 0) can increase IOPS but adds complexity and does not fix insufficient provisioned IOPS or instance bandwidth. Option E (gp3 with 10,000 IOPS) does not increase IOPS compared to the current io1 volume.

Answer

Migrate the volume to an instance with NVMe instance store.

Answer

Configure multiple EBS volumes in a RAID 0 stripe to increase IOPS.

Answer

Change the volume type to gp3 with 10,000 IOPS.