PAS-C01 Technology Practice Test 7 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An SAP system on AWS sends large amounts of batch data via RFC calls between two EC2 instances in the same VPC. The application team reports high network latency. Which configuration change would most effectively reduce latency?

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

Accepted Answer

Place both EC2 instances in the same cluster placement group.. Cluster placement groups provide low-latency, high-throughput network connectivity by placing instances in a single Availability Zone within a logical group, ensuring they are in close physical proximity. For SAP RFC batch data transfer between two EC2 instances in the same VPC, this reduces network hops and latency significantly compared to instances placed in different racks or AZs.

Answer

Assign Elastic IP addresses to both instances.

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Enable Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) on both instances.

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Use Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) for network communication.

Question 2

A company running SAP on AWS needs to back up their SAP HANA database daily with point-in-time recovery. Which service should they use to achieve this with minimal operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

AWS Backup with the SAP HANA backup plan.. AWS Backup with the SAP HANA backup plan is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed, policy-driven backup service that integrates directly with SAP HANA to perform database-consistent, log-based backups for point-in-time recovery. This eliminates the need for custom scripts or manual orchestration, minimizing operational overhead while ensuring compliance with SAP's backup requirements.

Answer

Amazon RDS automated backups.

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Amazon EBS snapshots via a script.

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Amazon S3 with lifecycle policies.

Question 3

An SAP system is running on EC2 and uses a Classic Load Balancer to distribute traffic to web dispatchers. The operations team notices that the load balancer is not distributing traffic evenly. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The load balancer uses a flow hash algorithm that may not evenly distribute requests with many long-lived connections.. Classic Load Balancers use a flow hash algorithm based on the source IP, destination IP, source port, destination port, and protocol to route requests. This algorithm can cause uneven distribution when many long-lived connections (such as SAP GUI or HTTP persistent connections) are present, because the same flow hash consistently maps to the same backend instance, leading to imbalance. This is the most likely cause given the scenario of an SAP system with web dispatchers.

Answer

Cross-zone load balancing is disabled.

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Connection draining is not enabled.

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The health check interval is set too high.

Question 4

A company is deploying SAP S/4HANA on AWS and needs to ensure that the system can handle a sudden increase in user load during month-end closing. Which architectural change would best address this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Configure auto-scaling for the SAP application tier based on CPU utilization.. SAP S/4HANA on AWS supports auto-scaling for the application tier (ASCS/PAS/AAS) using AWS Auto Scaling groups based on CPU utilization. This allows the system to dynamically add or remove application server instances to handle sudden spikes in user load during month-end closing, ensuring performance without manual intervention.

Answer

Deploy the application across multiple Availability Zones.

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Increase the provisioned IOPS on the database EBS volumes.

Answer

Use a larger EC2 instance type for the application server.

Question 5

An SAP environment uses Amazon CloudWatch to monitor EC2 instances. The operations team wants to receive a notification when the CPU utilization exceeds 90% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Alarms with Amazon SNS.. Amazon CloudWatch Alarms can monitor a metric (like CPUUtilization) and trigger an action when the metric crosses a defined threshold for a specified number of consecutive evaluation periods. By setting the alarm to evaluate CPU utilization > 90% for 5 consecutive minutes (e.g., 5 periods of 1 minute each) and configuring the alarm action to publish to an Amazon SNS topic, the operations team receives a notification directly. This is the native, serverless way to react to CloudWatch metrics without additional infrastructure.

Answer

AWS Config.

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail.

Question 6

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 7

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.

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AWS Key Management Service (KMS) alone.

Answer

AWS Secrets Manager.

Question 8

Which TWO of the following are valid strategies to improve the availability of an SAP HANA database on AWS?

Accepted Answer

Implement automatic failover using SAP HANA System Replication.. SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) provides synchronous or asynchronous replication of the HANA database to a secondary system. Automatic failover can be configured using HSR with tools like Pacemaker or AWS-specific scripts, ensuring high availability by switching to the standby instance if the primary fails. This is a native SAP HANA feature that does not rely on external services.

Answer

Use Amazon RDS for HANA with Multi-AZ deployment.

Answer

Take daily snapshots of the HANA data volume.

Answer

Use a larger EC2 instance type for the HANA server.

Question 9

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.. SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) across AWS regions provides synchronous or near-synchronous replication of HANA databases, enabling an RPO of less than 15 minutes and an RTO under 1 hour when combined with automated failover. This is the primary mechanism for achieving low RPO/RTO in SAP S/4HANA disaster recovery on AWS.

Answer

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for ongoing replication.

Answer

Amazon S3 Glacier for long-term backups.

Question 10

Which TWO are best practices for securing SAP on AWS?

Accepted Answer

Use security groups to control traffic between SAP components.. Security groups act as a virtual firewall for EC2 instances, allowing you to control inbound and outbound traffic at the instance level. For SAP on AWS, using security groups to restrict traffic between SAP components (e.g., between the SAP application server and database server) is a best practice because it enforces least-privilege access and reduces the attack surface. IAM roles for EC2 instances enable secure, automated access to AWS services (like S3 for backups or CloudWatch for monitoring) without embedding long-term credentials in the instance, which is critical for compliance and operational security.

Answer

Place all SAP systems in the default VPC.

Answer

Attach public IP addresses to all SAP EC2 instances for easy management.

Answer

Disable security groups and rely on SSH key pairs only.

Question 11

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 12

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.

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

Question 13

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

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Amazon Route 53 and Elastic Load Balancing

Question 14

An SAP system on AWS uses a shared file system (e.g., /sapmnt) that must be accessible from multiple EC2 instances. Which storage solution provides the highest availability and scalability?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EFS. Amazon EFS provides a fully managed, NFS-based shared file system that is accessible from multiple EC2 instances across Availability Zones, offering high availability and automatic scalability. For SAP /sapmnt, EFS supports the required POSIX permissions and concurrent access patterns without single points of failure, unlike block storage or gateway solutions.

Answer

Amazon S3 with S3 File Gateway

Answer

AWS Storage Gateway file gateway

Answer

Amazon EBS with multi-attach enabled

Question 15

A company wants to ensure that their SAP HANA database backups are stored securely and can be retained for 7 years for compliance. Which AWS service should they use to archive the backups?

Accepted Answer

Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive. Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the correct choice because it provides the lowest-cost storage class designed for long-term retention of data that is accessed infrequently, with a default retrieval time of 12 hours. This meets the 7-year compliance requirement for SAP HANA backups while minimizing storage costs, as the backups are unlikely to be accessed frequently after the initial retention period.

Answer

Amazon EBS Snapshots

Answer

Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering

Answer

Amazon S3 Standard