PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Test 14 — 15 Questions

Question 1

Which THREE storage options are supported for SAP HANA data files on AWS? (Select THREE.)

Accepted Answer

NVMe instance store SSDs on i3en instances. Option B is correct because SAP HANA supports NVMe instance store SSDs on i3en instances for data files, as these provide the low-latency, high-throughput storage required for HANA's in-memory database persistence. Option C is correct because Amazon EBS gp3 volumes can be provisioned with sufficient IOPS (up to 16,000 IOPS per volume) to meet SAP HANA's performance requirements for data files. Option D is correct because Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes deliver sub-millisecond latency and high durability with up to 256,000 IOPS, making them a validated storage option for SAP HANA data files on AWS. Option A is not correct because Amazon EFS is a shared file system not certified for SAP HANA data file storage due to latency and throughput limitations. Option E is not correct because Amazon S3 is object storage and cannot be used as a direct storage location for SAP HANA data files, which require block-level or instance-store access.

Answer

Amazon EFS

Answer

Amazon S3

Question 2

Which TWO AWS services can be used to monitor SAP HANA database performance in real time? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager. AWS Systems Manager is correct because it provides real-time operational visibility into SAP HANA instances through tools like Run Command, Session Manager, and Automation, and its integration with CloudWatch agent allows live collection of OS-level and SAP HANA metrics for monitoring database performance. Amazon CloudWatch is correct because it collects and tracks real-time metrics and logs, supports custom metrics from SAP HANA (e.g., via the CloudWatch agent or SAP HANA monitoring scripts), and enables alarms and dashboards for live performance monitoring. AWS CloudTrail is not correct because it records API activity and audit events, not real-time database performance metrics. AWS Trusted Advisor is not correct because it provides best-practice checks and recommendations, not live SAP HANA performance monitoring. AWS Config is not correct because it tracks resource configuration changes and compliance over time, not real-time database performance.

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Answer

AWS Config

Question 3

A company is running SAP NetWeaver on AWS and wants to implement a high-availability solution for the SAP Central Services (ASCS). Which AWS service can be used to manage the virtual IP address for failover?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Route 53 with failover routing. Amazon Route 53 with failover routing is the correct choice because it can manage a virtual IP address (VIP) for SAP Central Services (ASCS) failover by using DNS health checks to detect ASCS failure and automatically update the DNS record to point to the healthy secondary instance. This aligns with the SAP on AWS high-availability pattern where a DNS-based VIP is preferred over traditional floating IPs, as AWS does not support layer 2 VIP failover across Availability Zones.

Answer

AWS Global Accelerator

Answer

Elastic Load Balancer (ELB)

Answer

Elastic IP address reassignment

Question 4

A company is running SAP on AWS and needs to ensure that its SAP HANA database is backed up daily with minimal impact on performance. The database is 2 TB in size and runs on an r5.8xlarge instance. Which backup strategy meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use the SAP HANA Backint agent to back up directly to Amazon S3. The SAP HANA Backint agent integrates directly with SAP HANA to stream backup data to Amazon S3, which offloads the backup workload from the database instance's CPU and I/O. This minimizes performance impact compared to local EBS snapshots or volume-based backups, as Backint uses S3's scalable throughput without consuming instance storage bandwidth.

Answer

Perform a full backup to Amazon EBS volumes attached to the instance

Answer

Use AWS Backup to create snapshots of the entire EC2 instance

Answer

Use AWS Storage Gateway to back up to Amazon S3 Glacier

Question 5

Which THREE of the following are best practices for securing an SAP system on AWS? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Enable CloudTrail to log API calls for auditing. Option A is correct because AWS CloudTrail records all API activity in the account, providing the audit trail required to detect unauthorized changes to SAP instances, security groups, and other resources. Option B is correct because AWS KMS lets you create and manage customer master keys that encrypt EBS volumes at rest, protecting SAP data, database files, and backups if the underlying storage is compromised. Option E is correct because security groups act as stateful instance-level firewalls and network ACLs as stateless subnet-level filters, and layering both restricts SAP traffic (for example, only allowing SAP ports 3200-3299, 3300-3399, and 8000-8099 from trusted sources). Option C is wrong because sharing one security group across all SAP instances removes least-privilege segmentation, so a compromise of one tier (for example, the application server) would expose the database and other tiers. Option D is wrong because SAP license keys are sensitive credentials and must never be stored in a public S3 bucket; they should be kept in AWS Secrets Manager or an encrypted, access-controlled S3 bucket.

Answer

Use the same security group for all SAP instances

Answer

Store SAP license keys in a public S3 bucket

Question 6

A company is migrating an SAP S/4HANA system to AWS. The system requires high availability across two Availability Zones. Which AWS service should be used to attach a block-level storage volume that can be concurrently accessed by two EC2 instances in active/passive mode?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP to provide a shared block storage volume accessible from both AZs.. Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP provides a shared block-level storage volume that can be concurrently accessed by multiple EC2 instances across different Availability Zones using the iSCSI protocol. In an active/passive SAP S/4HANA setup, this allows the passive instance to mount the same storage volume and take over if the active instance fails, meeting the high-availability requirement across two AZs.

Answer

Use Amazon FSx for Windows File Server with a multi-AZ file system.

Answer

Use Amazon S3 as a shared block storage device.

Answer

Use Amazon EBS Multi-Attach to attach a single EBS volume to both EC2 instances across AZs.

Question 7

An SAP Basis administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue on an SAP HANA database running on an EC2 instance. The administrator notices that the 'hdbcons' command shows high 'wait time' for 'disk I/O' operations. The instance is an r5.4xlarge with 500 GB of gp2 EBS volumes for /hana/data and /hana/log. Which of the following is the MOST effective action to improve disk I/O performance?

Accepted Answer

Change the EBS volume type from gp2 to gp3 with higher IOPS and throughput.. Changing the EBS volume type from gp2 to gp3 with higher IOPS and throughput is the most effective action because gp3 offers a baseline performance that can be increased independently of volume size, and it provides higher IOPS and throughput compared to gp2. This directly addresses the high disk I/O wait time. Upgrading the instance type (option C) may not resolve the I/O bottleneck if the volumes are the limiting factor. Increasing snapshot frequency (option A) does not improve I/O performance. Disabling delta merge (option D) is not recommended and does not address disk I/O issues.

Answer

Increase the frequency of EBS snapshots to offload I/O.

Answer

Upgrade to a larger EC2 instance type with more CPU and memory.

Answer

Disable the HANA delta merge operation to reduce I/O load.

Question 8

A company runs SAP ERP on AWS using an Oracle database. To meet disaster recovery requirements, they need to replicate the database to a second AWS Region with low RPO. Which AWS service should be used for continuous, asynchronous replication of the Oracle database?

Accepted Answer

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication from the source Oracle database to a target Oracle database in the DR Region.. AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication is the correct choice because it supports continuous, asynchronous change data capture (CDC) from an on-premises or EC2-hosted Oracle source to a target Oracle database in another AWS Region, achieving low RPO by replicating transactions in near real-time without requiring application downtime. This meets the DR requirement for cross-region replication of an Oracle database with minimal data loss.

Answer

Copy the EC2 instance with the Oracle database as an AMI to the DR Region.

Answer

Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) to replicate database backups.

Answer

Amazon RDS for Oracle Read Replicas in the DR Region.

Question 9

A company runs SAP on AWS with an SAP HANA database on a single EC2 instance. They want to implement a disaster recovery solution with a recovery time objective (RTO) of 15 minutes and a recovery point objective (RPO) of 1 hour. The DR site is in a different AWS Region. Which approach meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Configure SAP HANA System Replication to a secondary instance in the DR Region and use automated EBS snapshots for cross-Region replication.. SAP HANA System Replication provides synchronous or asynchronous data replication to a secondary instance in another AWS Region, meeting the RPO of 1 hour and RTO of 15 minutes when combined with automated EBS snapshots for cross-Region replication. This approach ensures near-continuous database replication and rapid failover, while EBS snapshots provide additional consistency and recovery points.

Answer

Set up an automated process to copy the EC2 instance AMI to the DR Region every hour.

Answer

Use Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication to replicate the HANA data directory to the DR Region.

Answer

Perform periodic HANA database backups to S3 and restore in the DR Region when needed.

Question 10

An SAP system on AWS is experiencing intermittent connectivity issues between the SAP application servers and the HANA database server. The network team confirms that the VPC network ACLs and security groups allow all required traffic. However, the issue occurs only during peak load. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The TCP segmentation offload (TSO) is causing packet drops.. TCP segmentation offload (TSO) can cause packet drops under high network load. When the network interface is overwhelmed with large TCP segments that need to be processed by the CPU, it can lead to intermittent connectivity issues. During peak load, the increased traffic exacerbates this, causing timeouts between SAP application servers and the HANA database. Security groups and ACLs are correctly configured, so the issue is at the instance network level.

Answer

The EBS-optimized instance is not providing enough bandwidth for the database workload.

Answer

The Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) is not enabled on the instance.

Answer

The instance is using IPv6 addresses for communication.

Question 11

A company plans to migrate its SAP ERP system from an on-premises environment to AWS. The system uses an Oracle database. Which AWS service provides the most cost-effective and high-performance storage for the Oracle data files?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes. Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes provide the highest performance and durability for Oracle database workloads on AWS, offering up to 256,000 IOPS per volume and sub-millisecond latency. They are the most cost-effective choice for SAP ERP Oracle data files because they deliver consistent, high-throughput performance required for SAP's demanding I/O patterns, while allowing you to pay only for provisioned capacity without upfront costs. io2 volumes also support multi-attach and are designed for mission-critical databases, making them the optimal storage for Oracle data files in SAP on AWS.

Answer

EC2 Instance Store

Answer

Amazon EFS

Answer

Amazon S3

Question 12

A company runs SAP HANA on AWS. The system is experiencing high CPU utilization during peak hours. Which TWO actions should the administrator take to address this? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Right-size the EC2 instance to a larger type with more vCPUs.. Option D is correct because high CPU utilization during peak hours on SAP HANA is most directly remedied by moving to a larger EC2 instance type with more vCPUs, which increases available compute capacity and lets HANA parallelize its column-store operations across more cores. Option E is correct because SAP HANA workload management (e.g., via workload classes and admission control) can throttle or prioritize resource-intensive queries, preventing a few heavy statements from saturating CPU during peak periods. Option A is wrong because disabling columnar compression would increase memory footprint and I/O, not reduce CPU load, and compression is a core HANA feature. Option B is wrong because enlarging /hana/data EBS volumes adds storage capacity, which does not address CPU contention. Option C is wrong because reducing network throughput would degrade replication and application connectivity without lowering CPU utilization.

Answer

Disable HANA columnar compression to reduce CPU overhead.

Answer

Increase the size of the /hana/data EBS volumes.

Answer

Reduce the network throughput of the EC2 instance.

Question 13

An SAP system on AWS uses an Oracle database. The administrator wants to automate the creation of daily backups and retain them for 30 days. Which THREE AWS services can be used together to achieve this? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Amazon S3 lifecycle policies. Option A (Amazon S3 lifecycle policies) is correct because SAP/Oracle RMAN backups can be written to Amazon S3, and S3 lifecycle rules can automatically transition or expire objects after 30 days, satisfying the retention requirement. Option C (Amazon EBS snapshots) is correct because EBS snapshots can capture the Oracle database volumes and be automated on a daily schedule, with retention controlled via lifecycle policies or AWS Backup. Option D (AWS Backup) is correct because it provides centralized, policy-based backup scheduling (daily) and retention management (30 days) for supported resources such as EBS volumes, removing the need for custom scripting. Option B (AWS Lambda) is not marked correct because, while Lambda can run scheduled scripts, it is a compute service rather than a backup or retention mechanism and is not required to meet the stated goal. Option E (Amazon CloudWatch Events, now Amazon EventBridge) is not marked correct because it only triggers scheduled events and does not itself create backups or enforce 30-day retention.

Answer

AWS Lambda

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Events

Question 14

A company is designing a disaster recovery solution for SAP HANA on AWS using HANA System Replication. The primary site is in us-east-1 and the DR site is in us-west-2. Which component is required to enable replication across Regions?

Accepted Answer

AWS Site-to-Site VPN or AWS Direct Connect between the two Regions. To enable HANA System Replication (HSR) across AWS Regions, a reliable, low-latency network connection is required. AWS Site-to-Site VPN or AWS Direct Connect provides a dedicated, secure network path that meets SAP's latency and stability requirements. The other options (VPC peering, automated EBS snapshots, Global Accelerator, S3 Transfer Acceleration) are not required for HSR; HSR performs its own initial data synchronization, and VPC peering does not guarantee the required performance for HANA replication.

Answer

VPC peering between the two VPCs

Answer

Automated EBS snapshots of /hana/data and /hana/log volumes in us-east-1, copied to us-west-2

Answer

AWS Global Accelerator

Answer

Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration

Question 15

A company runs its SAP ERP system on AWS with an Oracle database on an EC2 instance. The system is used by thousands of users globally. Recently, the database has been experiencing slow query performance, especially during end-of-month processing. The administrator notices that the database instance is an r5.8xlarge with 32 vCPUs and 256 GB of memory, running on a single EBS io1 volume with 20,000 IOPS for the data files. The administrator has already optimized the SQL queries and increased the SGA size. However, performance remains poor. The Amazon CloudWatch metrics show that the EBS volume's Average Queue Length is consistently above 10 and the read latency spikes to over 100 ms during peak times. The CPU utilization is around 70%. Which action should the administrator take to resolve the I/O bottleneck?

Accepted Answer

Create multiple EBS io1 volumes and stripe them using RAID 0 at the OS level.. Striping multiple EBS io1 volumes using RAID 0 at the OS level increases I/O parallelism, distributing the workload across multiple volumes and reducing the average queue length and latency. Option A is incorrect because gp3 volumes may not provide sufficient IOPS for this demanding workload, and a single volume still creates a bottleneck. Option C is incorrect because increasing IOPS on a single volume may not resolve the queue length issue if the volume is already at its throughput limit. Option D is incorrect because upgrading the instance does not directly improve EBS performance; the bottleneck is at the storage layer.

Answer

Change the volume type to gp3 and increase the baseline IOPS.

Answer

Increase the IOPS of the existing io1 volume to 40,000.

Answer

Upgrade the EC2 instance to an r5.12xlarge with more network bandwidth.