PAS-C01 Technology Practice Test 4 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is migrating an SAP ERP system to AWS and needs to minimize downtime during the cutover. The database is SAP ASE. Which migration strategy is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Use SAP ASE replication to replicate data to an EC2 instance running ASE, then cut over.. SAP ASE native replication (via Sybase Replication Server) allows continuous, real-time data synchronization from the on-premises ASE database to an EC2 instance running ASE in AWS. While AWS DMS supports SAP ASE as a source, it typically performs a full load followed by ongoing replication, which can introduce higher latency and longer cutover windows. In contrast, native replication minimizes downtime by keeping the target closely synchronized, requiring only a brief pause to apply final transactions and redirect clients.

Answer

Create a nightly backup of the on-premises database, copy to AWS, and restore.

Answer

Perform a full database export from on-premises and import into Amazon RDS for ASE.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication.

Question 2

An SAP system on AWS needs to store sensitive configuration files securely and automatically rotate the encryption keys. Which AWS service should be used?

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store with AWS KMS.. AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store integrated with AWS KMS is the correct choice because it provides a secure, hierarchical store for sensitive configuration data (like SAP configuration files) and supports automatic key rotation via KMS-managed keys. Parameter Store can store encrypted strings using KMS keys, and KMS can be configured to rotate the underlying encryption key automatically every year (or on demand), meeting the requirement for both secure storage and automated key rotation.

Answer

Amazon S3 with server-side encryption.

Answer

AWS Key Management Service (KMS) alone.

Answer

AWS Secrets Manager.

Question 3

Which THREE services can be used together to implement a disaster recovery solution for SAP S/4HANA on AWS with a recovery time objective (RTO) of less than 1 hour and a recovery point objective (RPO) of less than 15 minutes?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA System Replication across regions.. Option A (SAP HANA System Replication across regions) is correct because HANA System Replication continuously ships redo logs to a secondary HANA system in another AWS region, enabling an RPO well under 15 minutes and fast takeover to meet an RTO under 1 hour. Option B (AWS CloudEndure Disaster Recovery, now AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery) is correct because it provides continuous block-level replication of the SAP application servers and supporting EC2 instances into a staging area in a recovery region, allowing rapid automated failover within the RTO target. Option E (Amazon S3 for storing HANA log backups) is correct because HANA log backups can be written to Amazon S3, which is durable and accessible across regions, supporting point-in-time recovery and helping satisfy the sub-15-minute RPO when combined with replication. Option C (AWS DMS for ongoing replication) is not appropriate here because DMS is designed for database migration and heterogeneous/same-engine replication of relational data, not for SAP HANA native replication or full SAP system disaster recovery. Option D (Amazon S3 Glacier for long-term backups) is not suitable because Glacier is archival storage with retrieval times from minutes to hours, which cannot meet an RTO of less than 1 hour.

Answer

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for ongoing replication.

Answer

Amazon S3 Glacier for long-term backups.

Question 4

A company is running an SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance with EBS volumes. The database experiences high write latency during peak hours. Which configuration change would most effectively reduce latency?

Accepted Answer

Use EBS io2 Block Express volumes with multi-attach enabled.. SAP HANA is a high-performance in-memory database that requires extremely low-latency storage for its data and log volumes. EBS io2 Block Express volumes provide up to 256,000 IOPS per volume with single-digit millisecond latency, and multi-attach enables a cluster configuration for high availability. This directly addresses high write latency during peak hours by delivering consistent, ultra-low latency performance that gp3 or larger instances cannot match.

Answer

Switch to gp3 EBS volumes with maximum throughput.

Answer

Increase the EC2 instance size to a compute-optimized type.

Answer

Migrate the data to instance store volumes.

Question 5

An SAP system administrator notices that an SAP S/4HANA system on AWS is experiencing high network latency between the application server and the database server. Both servers are in the same VPC but in different Availability Zones. What is the most effective way to reduce latency?

Accepted Answer

Launch both instances in the same placement group and enable EBS optimization.. Launching both instances in the same placement group ensures they are in close physical proximity within the same Availability Zone, which minimizes network latency. Enabling EBS-optimized instances dedicates network bandwidth to EBS I/O, reducing contention and further improving database performance. This directly addresses the high latency caused by cross-AZ traffic between the SAP application and database servers.

Answer

Set up VPC peering between the two subnets.

Answer

Deploy AWS Global Accelerator to optimize the traffic path.

Answer

Add multiple Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) to the instances.

Question 6

A company wants to set up an SAP HANA system replication across two AWS Regions for disaster recovery. Which AWS service should they use to achieve the lowest possible recovery point objective (RPO)?

Accepted Answer

AWS Direct Connect. AWS Direct Connect provides a dedicated, private network connection between on-premises or AWS regions, offering consistent low latency and high throughput essential for SAP HANA system replication. This minimizes data loss during log shipping, achieving the lowest possible RPO compared to internet-based options.

Answer

Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration

Answer

AWS Site-to-Site VPN

Answer

AWS Global Accelerator

Question 7

During an SAP system migration to AWS, the team needs to ensure that the SAP application can automatically restart if the EC2 instance fails. Which combination of AWS services should they use?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling and Amazon CloudWatch. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can automatically replace a failed EC2 instance by launching a new one, while Amazon CloudWatch can monitor instance health and trigger the Auto Scaling recovery process. Together, they ensure the SAP application restarts on a healthy instance without manual intervention, meeting the high-availability requirement for SAP workloads.

Answer

AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Amazon RDS

Answer

AWS Lambda and Amazon SQS

Answer

Amazon Route 53 and Elastic Load Balancing

Question 8

A company is running SAP Business Suite on AWS and wants to improve the disaster recovery posture by replicating data to another AWS Region. The solution must have a recovery time objective (RTO) of less than 15 minutes and a recovery point objective (RPO) of less than 5 minutes. Which approach should they take?

Accepted Answer

Configure SAP HANA system replication with synchronous mode.. SAP HANA system replication in synchronous mode ensures that every committed transaction is replicated to the secondary region before acknowledging the commit, achieving an RPO of effectively zero (less than 5 minutes) and enabling rapid failover within seconds, meeting the RTO of under 15 minutes. This is the only native SAP solution that provides the required low-latency, consistent replication for SAP Business Suite on AWS.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service for continuous replication.

Answer

Use Amazon S3 cross-Region replication for transaction logs.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to create cross-Region EBS snapshots every 5 minutes.

Question 9

An SAP system administrator needs to grant an external auditor read-only access to view EC2 instance configurations and CloudWatch logs. Which IAM policy should they use?

Accepted Answer

AWS managed policy: ReadOnlyAccess. The ReadOnlyAccess AWS managed policy grants read-only access to all AWS services and resources, including EC2 instance configurations and CloudWatch logs, without allowing any write or modify actions. This policy is the most appropriate for an external auditor who needs to view but not change any resources, as it provides the necessary read permissions across services while preventing any modifications.

Answer

AWS managed policy: SecurityAudit

Answer

AWS managed policy: AdministratorAccess

Answer

AWS managed policy: PowerUserAccess

Question 10

An SAP administrator attaches the above IAM policy to a user. What actions can the user perform?

Accepted Answer

Describe, start, and stop EC2 instances, but not terminate them.. The IAM policy explicitly allows ec2:Describe*, ec2:StartInstances, and ec2:StopInstances actions, but does not include ec2:TerminateInstances. Therefore, the user can describe, start, and stop EC2 instances, but cannot terminate them. The Deny effect on ec2:TerminateInstances is not present, but the absence of an Allow means the action is implicitly denied.

Answer

Perform all EC2 actions including terminate.

Answer

Only describe EC2 instances.

Answer

Only start and stop instances.

Question 11

An SAP administrator runs the command `aws ec2 describe-volumes --volume-id vol-0abc1234` and sees the following output:
```
{
    "Volumes": [
        {
            "VolumeId": "vol-0abc1234",
            "Size": 100,
            "VolumeType": "io2",
            "Iops": 10000,
            "State": "available",
            "MultiAttachEnabled": false,
            "Attachments": []
        }
    ]
}
```
The EC2 instance i-0a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8 is stopped. What will happen if the administrator attempts to start the instance?

Accepted Answer

The instance will start but the volume will not attach because multi-attach is disabled.. The volume is in 'available' state, meaning it is not attached to any instance. Starting a stopped instance does not automatically attach a detached volume; the volume must be manually attached. Therefore, the instance will start successfully but the volume will not be attached, making option C correct.

Answer

The instance will fail to start because the volume type is not supported.

Answer

The instance will start successfully and the volume will be attached.

Answer

The instance will start but the volume will be read-only.

Question 12

Which TWO AWS services can be used to create a private, low-latency network connection between an on-premises data center and an SAP environment on AWS? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

AWS Site-to-Site VPN. AWS Site-to-Site VPN (B) is correct because it establishes an encrypted IPsec tunnel over the public internet between the on-premises customer gateway and an AWS virtual private gateway or transit gateway, providing a private, low-latency connection to the SAP environment on AWS. AWS Direct Connect (C) is correct because it provides a dedicated, private physical network connection from the on-premises data center to AWS, offering consistent low latency and higher bandwidth for SAP workloads. VPC peering (A) only connects VPCs within AWS and cannot link an on-premises data center to AWS. AWS Transit Gateway (D) is a hub for connecting VPCs and on-premises networks but is not itself the connection service to on-premises. AWS PrivateLink (E) provides private access to services via VPC endpoints and does not create a data center-to-AWS network connection.

Answer

VPC peering

Answer

AWS Transit Gateway

Answer

AWS PrivateLink

Question 13

Which TWO AWS services can be used to automate the backup of SAP HANA databases? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

AWS Backup. AWS Backup (D) is correct because it provides a fully managed, policy-based backup service that supports SAP HANA databases on Amazon EC2 via the AWS Backup for SAP HANA solution, allowing scheduled, automated backups with retention and lifecycle management. The SAP HANA Backint agent for Amazon S3 (E) is correct because it integrates directly with SAP HANA's native BACKINT interface to write full, differential, and log backups to Amazon S3, and it can be scheduled and automated through SAP HANA's own backup scheduling (e.g., via DB13 or hdbsql scripts). Amazon RDS (A) is not correct because RDS does not support SAP HANA as an engine; it only supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server, and Db2. AWS Lambda (B) is not correct because Lambda is a general-purpose serverless compute service, not a backup service for SAP HANA, though it could be used to trigger backups it is not itself a backup automation service for HANA. AWS Storage Gateway (C) is not correct because it is a hybrid cloud storage service for file, volume, and tape gateways, not a SAP HANA backup automation tool.

Answer

Amazon RDS

Answer

AWS Lambda

Answer

AWS Storage Gateway

Question 14

An SAP Basis administrator needs to migrate an on-premises SAP ERP system running on Oracle to AWS. The system has a 2 TB database and requires minimal downtime (less than 1 hour). The current on-premises network bandwidth to AWS is 1 Gbps. Which migration strategy is MOST appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication from Oracle to Amazon RDS for Oracle, then perform a final cutover.. AWS DMS with ongoing replication from Oracle to Amazon RDS for Oracle is the most appropriate strategy because it supports minimal downtime (less than 1 hour) by continuously replicating changes from the source Oracle database to the target RDS instance, allowing a short final cutover window. The 1 Gbps bandwidth is sufficient for the initial full load of a 2 TB database when using DMS's optimized data transfer, and the target RDS for Oracle provides a fully managed Oracle-compatible environment suitable for SAP ERP workloads.

Answer

Export the database using SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) to an Amazon EC2 instance with HANA.

Answer

Perform a manual export/import using Oracle Data Pump and transfer the dump file via AWS Direct Connect.

Answer

Use AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) to replicate the entire server to AWS, then cut over.

Question 15

An SAP administrator notices that the SAP HANA database performance has degraded significantly during peak hours. The HANA instance is running on an r5.8xlarge EC2 instance with EBS gp2 volumes. Monitoring shows high I/O wait times on the data volume. Which change is MOST likely to improve performance?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes with high IOPS.. The performance degradation is due to high I/O wait times on the data volume, indicating that the EBS volume's IOPS limit is being saturated. Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes provide up to 256,000 IOPS per volume with consistent sub-millisecond latency, which directly addresses the I/O bottleneck for SAP HANA workloads. In contrast, gp3 volumes are capped at 16,000 IOPS, which is insufficient for peak-hour demands on an r5.8xlarge instance.

Answer

Enable Multi-AZ deployment for SAP HANA.

Answer

Upgrade the EC2 instance to a larger size like r5.16xlarge.

Answer

Change the EBS volume type from gp2 to gp3 with 3000 IOPS.