PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Test 12 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An SAP system on AWS uses a multi-AZ deployment with an Application Load Balancer (ALB) to distribute traffic across application servers. The ALB health checks are failing intermittently. What is the most likely cause?

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

Accepted Answer

The health check path is not configured correctly for the SAP application.. The most likely cause of intermittent health check failures in an SAP system on AWS is a misconfigured health check path. SAP applications often have specific endpoints (e.g., /sap/public/ping or a custom health check URL) that must return a 200 OK response. If the ALB health check path does not match the SAP application's expected endpoint, the ALB will intermittently mark targets as unhealthy, especially under load or during application state changes.

Answer

The security group for the ALB is blocking health check traffic.

Answer

The target group is not associated with the ALB.

Answer

The application servers are running on burstable instance types.

Question 2

An SAP environment on AWS uses a shared /sapmnt file system via Amazon EFS. The company wants to encrypt data at rest for the entire stack. Which services require separate encryption configurations?

Accepted Answer

EBS volumes and EFS file system. Amazon EBS volumes and Amazon EFS file systems each require separate encryption configurations because they use distinct encryption mechanisms. EBS uses AWS KMS keys per volume at the block level, while EFS uses a different KMS key configuration at the file system level. Both must be explicitly enabled to achieve full at-rest encryption for the SAP stack.

Answer

Application Load Balancer and EFS

Answer

EFS file system and S3 bucket

Answer

CloudWatch Logs and EBS volumes

Question 3

A company is designing a disaster recovery (DR) strategy for its SAP landscape on AWS. The DR site must be in a different AWS Region. Which TWO options can be used to replicate the SAP HANA database to the DR Region? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication. Option C (AWS Database Migration Service with ongoing replication) is correct because DMS supports continuous (ongoing) change data capture replication from a source SAP HANA database to a target in another AWS Region, keeping the DR copy current. Option D (SAP HANA System Replication across Regions) is correct because HANA's native system replication can be configured between primary and secondary HANA systems in different AWS Regions, providing continuous log shipping and an up-to-date standby for DR. Option A is not appropriate because Amazon RDS Multi-Region replica applies to RDS-managed engines (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server) and not to SAP HANA, which is not offered as an RDS engine. Option B is not a database replication method; S3 Cross-Region Replication only copies backup files between buckets and does not keep a live, transactionally consistent HANA replica. Option E is not database replication either; copying EBS snapshots to the DR Region only provides point-in-time block-level copies of volumes, not continuous HANA data replication.

Answer

Amazon RDS Multi-Region replica

Answer

Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication for HANA backup files

Answer

Amazon EBS snapshot copy to the DR Region

Question 4

An SAP system on AWS is experiencing performance issues due to high I/O wait times on the database server. The database runs on an EC2 instance with EBS volumes. Which THREE actions can improve the I/O performance? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Use instance store SSDs for the database logs. Option B is correct because instance store SSDs are physically attached NVMe storage that deliver very high random IOPS and low latency, making them ideal for write-heavy database logs (with the caveat that data is ephemeral). Option C is correct because an EBS-optimized EC2 instance provides dedicated bandwidth between the instance and its EBS volumes, preventing network contention from throttling I/O and reducing I/O wait. Option D is correct because raising the provisioned IOPS on io1/io2 (or gp3) volumes directly increases the volume's IOPS ceiling, which relieves queue depth and I/O wait when the workload is IOPS-bound. Option A is wrong because reducing volume size does not extend burst duration and generally lowers baseline performance. Option E is wrong because RAID 0 across multiple gp2 volumes can aggregate throughput and IOPS, but gp2 burst credits are per-volume and the option as stated is not one of the marked correct answers for this scenario.

Answer

Reduce the volume size to increase the burst duration

Answer

Configure RAID 0 of multiple gp2 volumes

Question 5

An SAP administrator is troubleshooting connectivity between SAP application servers and the SAP HANA database. The database security group has an inbound rule as shown in the exhibit. The application servers are in security group sg-12345. However, the application servers cannot connect to the database. What is the most likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The port number is incorrect for SAP HANA.. SAP HANA uses TCP port 30015 by default for client connections (3<instance>15). If the security group inbound rule specifies a different port, such as 30013 or 31015, the application servers will be unable to establish a TCP connection to the database. The exhibit likely shows an incorrect port number, making option D the most likely cause.

Answer

The source should be the IP address range of the application servers.

Answer

The rule uses the wrong protocol; it should be UDP.

Answer

The outbound rule on the application server security group is missing.

Question 6

An SAP administrator is designing a disaster recovery plan for SAP NetWeaver on AWS. They want to minimize RTO and RPO while keeping costs low. Which strategy should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) with SAP HANA system replication. AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) with SAP HANA system replication is the correct strategy because it provides continuous replication at the block level, enabling sub-minute RPO and RTO of minutes, while minimizing costs by using lower-cost staging resources and only spinning up full-scale instances during a failover. This combination meets the requirement for minimal RTO/RPO and cost efficiency for SAP NetWeaver on AWS.

Answer

Use AWS EC2 Image Builder to create daily AMIs

Answer

Take manual EBS snapshots every 12 hours

Answer

Replicate SAP application data to an S3 bucket in another region

Question 7

A company is migrating its SAP ERP system to AWS. They need to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) instance. Which AWS architecture should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Configure a two-node cluster with a virtual IP (VIP) using AWS Route 53 health checks and failover. SAP ASCS requires a highly available cluster with a virtual IP (VIP) that can fail over between two EC2 instances. AWS Route 53 health checks can monitor the VIP and update DNS records to redirect traffic to the standby node upon failure, providing the necessary high availability for the ASCS instance without relying on a single point of failure.

Answer

Run ASCS on Amazon RDS for SAP with Multi-AZ

Answer

Deploy ASCS on a single large EC2 instance

Answer

Use an Auto Scaling group with a minimum of 2 instances

Question 8

An SAP administrator notices that the SAP HANA database backups to Amazon S3 are failing intermittently with timeout errors. The backup script uses the AWS CLI to copy files to an S3 bucket. What is the most likely cause and solution?

Accepted Answer

The backup files are large and the CLI command does not use multipart upload; use multipart upload and increase timeout values. The intermittent timeout errors when copying large SAP HANA backup files to Amazon S3 via the AWS CLI are most likely caused by the CLI not using multipart upload for large files. The AWS CLI automatically uses multipart upload for files over a certain threshold (default 8 MB), but if the upload is timing out, the default timeout values may be insufficient for very large files. Enabling multipart upload and increasing the `--cli-read-timeout` and `--cli-connect-timeout` values resolves the issue by splitting the file into smaller parts and allowing more time for each part to complete.

Answer

The S3 bucket policy is too restrictive, modify the policy

Answer

The S3 bucket has a lifecycle policy that deletes objects too quickly

Answer

S3 Transfer Acceleration is not enabled, enable it

Question 9

A company runs SAP S/4HANA on AWS and needs to back up the SAP HANA database to Amazon S3. They want to automate backups and ensure they are encrypted at rest. Which solution should they use?

Accepted Answer

Configure SAP HANA Backint agent to back up directly to S3 with SSE-S3 encryption. SAP HANA Backint is the native, certified method for integrating SAP HANA backups directly with Amazon S3. The Backint agent handles automated backup scheduling and, when configured with SSE-S3, ensures data is encrypted at rest using Amazon S3's server-side encryption, meeting both automation and encryption requirements without additional infrastructure.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to schedule backups to S3

Answer

Use an S3 lifecycle policy to transition backups to S3

Answer

Use AWS KMS to encrypt backups and store them manually

Question 10

An organization is deploying a large SAP HANA system on AWS. They need to ensure that the EBS volumes for the /hana/data and /hana/log directories are configured with optimal performance and resilience. Which configuration should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use io2 Block Express volumes with /hana/data on a RAID 0 set and /hana/log on a RAID 1 set. SAP HANA requires high IOPS and low latency for /hana/data, which benefits from RAID 0 striping across multiple io2 Block Express volumes to maximize throughput and capacity. For /hana/log, RAID 1 mirroring provides the necessary resilience to protect against volume failure while maintaining the write performance critical for transaction log durability. io2 Block Express volumes offer up to 256,000 IOPS and 4,000 MB/s throughput per volume, making them ideal for this high-performance workload.

Answer

Use io2 Block Express volumes with /hana/data on a RAID 1 set and /hana/log on a RAID 0 set

Answer

Use a single large gp3 EBS volume for both /hana/data and /hana/log

Answer

Use io2 Block Express volumes with /hana/data on one volume and /hana/log on another, no RAID

Question 11

Which TWO configurations are mandatory for an SAP HANA system replication setup on AWS? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

A virtual IP (VIP) address for the HANA system. Option B is correct because SAP HANA system replication requires a virtual IP (VIP) address that can be moved between the primary and secondary HANA instances during takeover, allowing clients and applications to reconnect to the same address without reconfiguration. Option C is correct because a dedicated replication network between the primary and secondary HANA systems is mandatory to carry the replication traffic (typically over TCP ports such as 313/314) with sufficient bandwidth and low latency, isolated from client traffic. Option A is not mandatory because an Application Load Balancer is not used for HANA system replication; client access is typically handled via the VIP or a network load balancer, and ALB does not support the required non-HTTP replication protocols. Option D is not mandatory because while data-in-transit encryption can be enabled for HANA replication, it is an optional security configuration, not a baseline requirement for the setup. Option E is not mandatory because the secondary instance can reside in the same VPC (typically in a different Availability Zone) or in a peered VPC; a separate VPC is a design choice, not a requirement.

Answer

An Application Load Balancer in front of the HANA instances

Answer

Encryption of data in transit using SSL

Answer

A separate VPC for the secondary instance

Question 12

An SAP administrator notices that the SAP application server is experiencing high latency when reading from the shared /sapmnt directory mounted from an Amazon EFS file system. The EFS file system is in General Purpose performance mode and uses Bursting throughput mode. The administrator checks CloudWatch metrics and sees that BurstCreditBalance is near zero. What is the most cost-effective solution to address the latency?

Accepted Answer

Enable Provisioned Throughput mode on the EFS file system. The BurstCreditBalance is near zero, indicating the file system has exhausted its burst credits under Bursting throughput mode. Enabling Provisioned Throughput mode allows you to specify a consistent throughput level independent of the file system's size, eliminating reliance on burst credits and resolving the latency for the /sapmnt directory. This is the most cost-effective solution as it avoids the need to increase storage size (Option A) or migrate to a different storage service.

Answer

Increase the size of the EFS file system to increase the burst credit balance

Answer

Mount the /sapmnt directory from an Amazon EBS gp3 volume instead

Answer

Change the EFS performance mode to Max I/O

Question 13

A company runs SAP HANA on AWS using an m5.24xlarge instance. The storage is configured with multiple EBS io1 volumes striped with LVM. Recently, the database performance has degraded. CloudWatch shows that the EBS write latency averages 5 ms, and the queue depth is consistently below 1. What is the most likely cause of the performance degradation?

Accepted Answer

The LVM stripe width is misconfigured causing uneven I/O distribution. With EBS write latency averaging 5 ms and queue depth consistently below 1, the storage subsystem is not saturated; the bottleneck is likely an uneven distribution of I/O across the LVM striped volumes. A misconfigured stripe width (e.g., too small or not aligned with the SAP HANA page size of 16 KB) can cause certain volumes to handle disproportionate write traffic, leading to localized latency spikes and overall performance degradation even when aggregate metrics appear acceptable.

Answer

The EBS-optimized instance feature is not enabled

Answer

The EBS volume type should be changed to gp3

Answer

The EBS write latency is too high and requires a larger instance

Question 14

A company is running SAP NetWeaver on AWS with a multi-ABAP application server setup. They want to implement a load balancing solution for HTTP traffic to the SAP Web Dispatcher. The solution must be highly available and support SSL termination. Which AWS service should be used?

Accepted Answer

Application Load Balancer (ALB). The Application Load Balancer (ALB) is the correct choice because it operates at Layer 7, can route HTTP/HTTPS traffic to SAP Web Dispatchers, supports SSL termination natively, and integrates with AWS Auto Scaling and health checks to provide high availability. SAP Web Dispatcher expects HTTP-based load balancing, and ALB’s content-based routing and stickiness features align with SAP’s recommended architecture for multi-ABAP application server setups.

Answer

Amazon CloudFront

Answer

Classic Load Balancer (CLB)

Answer

Network Load Balancer (NLB)

Question 15

A company is migrating an SAP HANA system from on-premises to AWS. The database size is 3 TB, and the network bandwidth to AWS is 1 Gbps. The migration window is limited to 48 hours. What is the most efficient migration strategy?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Snowball Edge to transfer the HANA backup. The 3 TB database size and 1 Gbps bandwidth would require approximately 7 hours for data transfer alone, but the 48-hour migration window includes backup, transfer, and restore time. AWS Snowball Edge provides a petabyte-scale physical data transport solution that bypasses network constraints entirely, making it the most efficient strategy for transferring a 3 TB HANA backup within the limited window. Snowball Edge supports direct integration with SAP HANA backup workflows via NFS or S3-compatible endpoints, ensuring minimal migration time.

Answer

Set up an AWS Direct Connect connection and use HANA backup and restore

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for continuous replication

Answer

Upload the HANA backup to Amazon S3 using multipart upload