PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Test 11 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An SAP system uses a secondary IP address for the SAP application. After an instance reboot, the secondary IP address is no longer attached. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The secondary IP address is not automatically re-attached after instance stop/start. When an EC2 instance is stopped and started, any secondary private IP addresses assigned to its primary Elastic Network Interface (ENI) are automatically released and not re-attached. The SAP application relies on this secondary IP address, so after a stop/start cycle the address is lost, requiring manual re-assignment or automation to restore it.

Answer

The Elastic IP address was not associated with the instance

Answer

The security group removed the IP address

Answer

The Elastic Network Interface (ENI) was deleted

Question 2

An SAP system is running on an EC2 instance with an instance profile that grants access to an S3 bucket. The application is unable to read a specific object from the bucket. What is the first step to troubleshoot the issue?

Accepted Answer

Check the IAM policy attached to the instance profile. The instance profile grants the EC2 instance permissions to access the S3 bucket via IAM roles. If the application cannot read a specific object, the most likely cause is that the IAM policy attached to the instance profile does not include the necessary permissions (e.g., s3:GetObject) for that object. Checking the IAM policy is the first logical step because it directly controls the identity-based access for the instance.

Answer

Check the security group associated with the instance

Answer

Check the network ACLs

Answer

Check the S3 bucket policy

Question 3

Which TWO statements are true regarding Amazon EBS volume types for SAP HANA data volumes?

Accepted Answer

io2 Block Express volumes provide up to 256,000 IOPS. Option B is correct because io2 Block Express volumes are designed for the highest-performance, mission-critical workloads and support up to 256,000 IOPS per volume, which aligns with SAP HANA's demanding data volume requirements. Option C is correct because gp3 volumes decouple storage capacity from performance and can be provisioned with up to 16,000 IOPS and 1,000 MiB/s throughput, making them a valid general-purpose SSD option for SAP HANA data volumes in supported configurations. Option A is not correct because io1 is the older generation of Provisioned IOPS SSD and is not the recommended choice when io2 Block Express offers higher durability and IOPS. Option D is not correct because st1 is a throughput-optimized HDD intended for sequential workloads, not the low-latency random I/O required for SAP HANA log volumes. Option E is not correct because sc1 is a cold HDD designed for infrequently accessed data and cannot deliver the performance SAP HANA data volumes require.

Answer

io1 volumes are the recommended choice for SAP HANA

Answer

st1 volumes are suitable for SAP HANA log volumes

Answer

sc1 volumes are cost-effective for SAP HANA data volumes

Question 4

Which ONE of the following is required to enable SAP HANA System Replication across two AWS Availability Zones?

Accepted Answer

The primary and secondary instances must be in the same AWS region. SAP HANA System Replication requires primary and secondary instances to be in the same AWS region to ensure low-latency replication; cross-region replication is not supported for synchronous replication. Option A is correct. Option B is incorrect because a Virtual Private Gateway is not needed for replication within a VPC. Option C is incorrect because SAP HANA System Replication operates at the database level and does not require shared storage or multi-attach EBS volumes. Option D is incorrect because a cluster placement group is not required for HANA System Replication; it is used for low-latency networking in scale-out scenarios. Option E is incorrect because an Application Load Balancer is not used for replication traffic; replication is handled directly between HANA instances.

Answer

A Virtual Private Gateway must be attached to the VPC

Answer

The EBS volumes must be configured for multi-attach or use a shared file system

Answer

A cluster placement group must be used

Answer

An Application Load Balancer must be configured for the replication traffic

Question 5

An SAP administrator created the above IAM policy for an EC2 instance that performs automated SAP HANA backups. The backup script runs successfully but fails to upload the backup files to the S3 bucket. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The IAM policy does not include permissions for multipart upload operations. The IAM policy shown in the question (not fully displayed here) likely includes s3:PutObject but omits the required s3:PutObjectPart and s3:AbortMultipartUpload permissions. SAP HANA backups often produce large files that exceed the 5 GB single-upload limit, forcing the AWS CLI or SDK to use multipart upload. Without these permissions, the upload fails after the script runs successfully.

Answer

The S3 bucket policy denies the upload

Answer

The IAM policy does not allow s3:PutObject

Answer

The EC2 instance does not have permission to create snapshots

Question 6

An SAP administrator is designing a high-availability (HA) setup for SAP HANA in a multi-AZ deployment on AWS. Which combination of AWS services and configurations is required for a fully automated HA solution?

Accepted Answer

NAT Gateway, EBS snapshots, and AWS Lambda. A fully automated high-availability solution for SAP HANA on AWS leverages AWS Lambda to orchestrate failover logic, monitor HANA system replication, and trigger automated recovery steps. NAT Gateway provides the necessary outbound connectivity for the HANA instances to access external resources, such as the replication partner in another AZ or AWS services for automation. EBS snapshots ensure crash-consistent backups of HANA data volumes, which can be used for rapid restoration in the event of a failure, enabling automated recovery without manual intervention.

Answer

Classic Load Balancer, AWS CloudTrail, and Amazon Inspector

Answer

Amazon Route 53, Application Load Balancer, and AWS CloudFormation

Answer

EC2 Auto Scaling, Amazon RDS, and AWS Backup

Question 7

An SAP system is running on AWS with an SAP HANA database. The administrator needs to back up the HANA database to Amazon S3. Which AWS service or feature should be used to perform efficient incremental backups?

Accepted Answer

AWS Backup with the SAP HANA backup plan. AWS Backup with the SAP HANA backup plan is correct because it provides native integration for SAP HANA databases, enabling automated, incremental, and log backups directly to Amazon S3. It uses the SAP HANA Backint agent to stream backup data to S3, supporting efficient incremental backups by only transferring changed data blocks since the last full or incremental backup, which minimizes storage and network costs.

Answer

Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration

Answer

AWS Storage Gateway with volume gateway

Answer

Amazon EBS snapshots of the HANA data volumes

Question 8

An SAP HANA database on AWS is using EBS io2 volumes. The administrator wants to increase the IOPS limit to meet peak workload demands without changing the volume size. What is the maximum IOPS that can be provisioned for an io2 volume per GB?

Accepted Answer

1,000 IOPS per GB. Amazon EBS io2 volumes support a maximum of 1,000 IOPS per GB, up to a volume-level limit of 256,000 IOPS. This allows the administrator to increase IOPS for peak workloads without resizing the volume, as long as the per-GB ratio is not exceeded.

Answer

2,000 IOPS per GB

Answer

500 IOPS per GB

Answer

100 IOPS per GB

Question 9

An SAP administrator is designing a backup strategy for SAP HANA on AWS. Which THREE practices should be implemented to ensure reliable backups?

Accepted Answer

Take consistent EBS snapshots of HANA volumes after quiescing the database. Option C is correct because taking EBS snapshots of the HANA data and log volumes after quiescing the database (e.g., via a HANA savepoint or by suspending writes) guarantees a crash-consistent, application-consistent point-in-time image that can be restored reliably. Option D is correct because enabling S3 Versioning on the backup bucket protects against accidental deletion or overwrite of backup objects, allowing previous versions to be recovered, which is essential for a reliable backup strategy. Option E is correct because AWS Backup with a backup plan automates and centralizes snapshot and backup scheduling, retention, and lifecycle management across services such as EBS and S3, reducing human error and ensuring backups run consistently. Option A is not appropriate because S3 One Zone-IA stores data in a single Availability Zone and is not designed for critical backup durability, so it should not be used for reliable SAP HANA backups. Option B is not appropriate because disabling encryption on backup targets weakens security and compliance and does not meaningfully improve reliability; encryption should remain enabled for backup data at rest.

Answer

Store backups in Amazon S3 One Zone-IA

Answer

Disable encryption on backup targets to reduce latency

Question 10

A company runs SAP Business Suite on AWS and wants to implement a disaster recovery solution using a pilot light approach. Which THREE components should be pre-provisioned in the DR region to reduce recovery time?

Accepted Answer

Pre-allocated Elastic IP addresses. Option C is correct because pre-allocated Elastic IP addresses in the DR region let you quickly remap the SAP application endpoints to the recovered instances without waiting for new public IP allocation or DNS propagation, which directly reduces recovery time. Option D is correct because custom AMIs for the SAP application servers capture the OS, SAP binaries, and configuration so that pilot-light EC2 instances can be launched immediately in the DR region rather than rebuilt from scratch. Option E is correct because pre-provisioned EBS volumes with HANA data continuously replicated via log shipping keep the DR database nearly current, allowing a fast mount-and-recover rather than a full restore from backup. Option A is incorrect because a pilot light does not require a fully running RDS for SAP HANA instance in the DR region; the database is kept in a stopped or minimal state with replicated storage, and RDS is not the typical deployment model for SAP HANA on AWS. Option B is incorrect because running EC2 instances for all SAP components is a full warm-standby or active-active approach, not pilot light, and it unnecessarily increases cost while contradicting the pilot-light design.

Answer

An Amazon RDS for SAP HANA instance

Answer

Running EC2 instances for all SAP components

Question 11

An SAP administrator is creating an IAM policy for the AWS SAP Landscape Management (LaMa) connector. The policy includes the actions shown. Which additional action is missing for LaMa to perform its typical automation tasks?

Accepted Answer

cloudformation:CreateStack and cloudformation:DeleteStack. AWS LaMa uses AWS CloudFormation to orchestrate the provisioning and teardown of infrastructure resources during SAP system cloning, refresh, or migration operations. Without cloudformation:CreateStack and cloudformation:DeleteStack, LaMa cannot create the temporary stacks needed for tasks like host replacement or storage snapshot-based cloning.

Answer

lambda:InvokeFunction

Answer

rds:CreateDBInstance and rds:DeleteDBInstance

Answer

s3:PutObject and s3:GetObject

Question 12

A company is migrating its SAP ERP system to AWS. The system requires high availability for the SAP central services (ASCS) and must support automatic failover. Which AWS architecture should the company use to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Deploy ASCS on an EC2 instance in an Auto Scaling group with a lifecycle hook that triggers a Lambda function to reattach the ASCS cluster resources.. It describes a pattern for achieving automatic failover of SAP ASCS using an Auto Scaling group with a lifecycle hook. When the ASCS instance fails, the Auto Scaling group launches a new instance, and the lifecycle hook triggers a Lambda function that reattaches the cluster resources (e.g., EIP, EBS volumes, or shared file systems) to the new instance, enabling the SAP ENSA2 or ENSA1 cluster to resume operations without manual intervention.

Answer

Configure a Network Load Balancer in front of two ASCS instances in different Availability Zones.

Answer

Use Amazon RDS Multi-AZ to host the SAP central services.

Answer

Run ASCS on a single EC2 instance in a single Availability Zone with an Elastic IP address.

Question 13

An SAP system is running on AWS and uses Amazon EFS for the /sapmnt directory. The system is experiencing high latency during file operations. Which configuration change could improve the performance of the EFS file system?

Accepted Answer

Enable the Max I/O performance mode on the EFS file system.. The Max I/O performance mode is designed for highly parallel, throughput-intensive workloads like SAP /sapmnt, which involves many concurrent file operations. It scales to higher levels of aggregate throughput and IOPS by distributing data across multiple servers, reducing latency under heavy load. General Purpose mode, while suitable for latency-sensitive workloads, cannot match the parallel throughput capabilities required by SAP systems.

Answer

Change the performance mode from Max I/O to General Purpose.

Answer

Migrate the /sapmnt directory to an Amazon EBS volume.

Answer

Increase the provisioned throughput of the EFS file system.

Question 14

An SAP system uses a shared file system via Amazon FSx for Windows File Server. The system administrators report that file locks are not being released properly, causing application errors. What is the most likely cause and solution?

Accepted Answer

Enable the file lock duration feature on the FSx file system to automatically release stale locks.. Amazon FSx for Windows File Server supports a file lock duration feature that can be configured to automatically release stale file locks after a specified timeout. This directly addresses the issue of locks not being released properly, which is a common cause of application errors in SAP systems relying on shared file systems.

Answer

Increase the throughput capacity of the FSx file system.

Answer

The file system is using NFSv3 protocol; switch to NFSv4.

Answer

The file system is using Amazon S3 as the backing store; migrate to EFS.

Question 15

A company needs to back up its SAP HANA database running on AWS. The backup must be stored in a durable and cost-effective manner. Which AWS service should the company use for long-term backup storage?

Accepted Answer

Amazon S3. Amazon S3 is the correct choice for long-term backup storage of SAP HANA databases on AWS because it offers 99.999999999% durability, is cost-effective with lifecycle policies to transition data to lower-cost tiers like S3 Glacier Deep Archive, and supports native integration with SAP HANA backup tools via the SAP HANA Backint agent for S3. This allows direct backup to S3 without intermediate storage, meeting both durability and cost requirements.

Answer

Amazon EBS snapshots

Answer

Amazon Glacier

Answer

AWS Backup