PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Test 18 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is migrating its SAP ERP system from an on-premises environment to AWS. The database is SAP HANA. The migration must minimize downtime. Which TWO approaches should the company consider?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS DMS with full load and ongoing change data capture (CDC).. AWS DMS with full load and ongoing change data capture (CDC) enables a near-zero-downtime migration by continuously replicating changes from the source SAP HANA database to the target on AWS after the initial full load, allowing the cutover to occur with minimal disruption. Option E is correct because SAP HANA System Replication provides a native, asynchronous or synchronous replication mechanism that can be configured between the on-premises HANA database and an AWS-hosted HANA instance, supporting a controlled switchover with very low downtime.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with full load only.

Answer

Use VM Import/Export to migrate the entire on-premises virtual machine to AWS.

Answer

Use the SAP Software Provisioning Manager (SWPM) to perform a homogeneous system copy over the network.

Question 2

A company runs SAP HANA on AWS using an r5.8xlarge instance with 3.8 TB of EBS gp3 storage. The HANA data volume is 2 TB. The system is experiencing performance issues, and the database administrator suspects that the storage I/O is the bottleneck. Which TWO actions should be taken to improve I/O performance?

Accepted Answer

Change the data volume type from gp3 to io2 Block Express with higher IOPS.. Io2 Block Express provides up to 256,000 IOPS per volume with sub-millisecond latency, which is essential for SAP HANA's demanding I/O patterns. The current gp3 volume, while offering baseline performance, cannot match the consistent low-latency and high-IOPS capabilities required for HANA data volumes under heavy write workloads. Option E is also correct because increasing provisioned IOPS on the existing gp3 volume directly addresses the I/O bottleneck by raising the performance ceiling, though gp3 has a maximum of 16,000 IOPS per volume, which may still be insufficient for large HANA deployments.

Answer

Increase the size of the log volume to improve write performance.

Answer

Enable HANA delta merge operations to run more frequently.

Answer

Upgrade the instance to a larger size with higher network bandwidth.

Question 3

An organization has an SAP S/4HANA system running on AWS. The system uses a multi-node HANA scale-out configuration. The company wants to implement a disaster recovery solution with an RPO of less than 1 hour and an RTO of less than 2 hours. The DR site is in a different AWS Region. Which THREE components should be included in the DR plan?

Accepted Answer

Cross-region Amazon Machine Image (AMI) copies for the SAP application servers.. AMI copies can be automated to replicate SAP application server configurations across regions, enabling rapid recovery of stateless application servers within the RTO. Since SAP application servers are stateless and can be recreated from AMIs, cross-region AMI copies provide a fast and reliable method to restore the application tier in the DR region without relying on storage-level replication.

Answer

AWS Global Accelerator to route traffic to the closest Region.

Answer

Daily EBS snapshots of all volumes copied to the DR Region.

Question 4

A company runs SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) on AWS with an Oracle database. The system is deployed on a single EC2 instance with EBS volumes. The company has scheduled a maintenance window for applying Oracle patches. The database administrator (DBA) will apply the patches during the maintenance window, which requires the database to be shut down. The DBA wants to minimize downtime and ensure that if the patching fails, the system can be rolled back quickly. The current setup includes daily EBS snapshots of the data volume, but these are taken at midnight. What should the DBA do to minimize downtime and ensure a quick rollback?

Accepted Answer

Create a snapshot of the EBS data volume immediately before applying the patches. If the patching fails, restore the volume from the snapshot.. Creating a snapshot of the EBS data volume immediately before applying the patches captures a point-in-time, crash-consistent state of the Oracle database. Since the database will be shut down during the maintenance window, this snapshot provides a reliable restore point. If patching fails, the DBA can quickly restore the volume from this snapshot, minimizing downtime by avoiding the need to restore from the older midnight snapshot, which would lose an entire day's worth of transactions.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to create a replica of the database before patching. If patching fails, redirect traffic to the replica.

Answer

Create an AMI of the entire EC2 instance before the maintenance window. If patching fails, launch a new instance from the AMI.

Answer

Stop the EC2 instance, create a snapshot of the data volume, then apply the patches. If patching fails, restore from the snapshot.

Question 5

An organization runs SAP S/4HANA on AWS with a single-host HANA database on an EC2 instance. The company wants to implement high availability (HA) for the HANA database within the same AWS Region. The HA solution must ensure automatic failover with minimal data loss. The SAP application servers are already distributed across multiple Availability Zones (AZs). The database administrator proposes using SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) with synchronous replication. However, the network latency between the primary and secondary HANA instances is consistently between 2 ms and 4 ms. What should the administrator do to ensure that the HA solution meets the requirements?

Accepted Answer

Deploy both HANA instances in the same Availability Zone to reduce network latency.. SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) with synchronous mode requires network latency typically below 1 ms to avoid transaction commit delays and replication timeouts. With consistent 2–4 ms latency, synchronous replication would cause unacceptable performance degradation and potential replication failures. Deploying both HANA instances in the same Availability Zone (AZ) reduces latency to sub-millisecond levels, enabling synchronous replication to meet the automatic failover and minimal data loss requirements.

Answer

Increase the HANA replication timeout value to accommodate the latency.

Answer

Use asynchronous replication instead and accept the risk of data loss.

Answer

Continue with synchronous replication; the latency is acceptable for HA.

Question 6

A company runs SAP Business Warehouse (BW) on AWS. The system uses an SAP HANA database that is also used for other SAP systems. The company wants to set up monitoring to ensure that the HANA database is performing optimally. They have installed the AWS CloudWatch agent on the HANA server to collect operating system metrics. However, they also need to collect HANA-specific metrics such as memory usage and SQL execution times. Which additional step should the company take to collect these metrics?

Accepted Answer

Install and configure the SAP HANA CloudWatch agent on the HANA server.. The AWS-provided SAP HANA CloudWatch agent is specifically designed to collect HANA-specific metrics such as memory usage, SQL execution times, and other database-level performance counters. It connects to the HANA database using the SQLDBC protocol and pushes the metrics directly to CloudWatch, complementing the OS-level metrics collected by the standard CloudWatch agent. This is the only option that directly addresses the requirement to gather HANA-specific metrics without additional custom development.

Answer

Set up SAP Solution Manager to send metrics to CloudWatch via an API.

Answer

Use Amazon CloudWatch Logs to capture HANA trace files and create metric filters.

Answer

Enable AWS CloudTrail to log HANA database API calls.

Question 7

An organization runs SAP ERP on AWS with an SAP HANA database. The database is deployed on an EC2 instance with EBS storage. The company is planning to upgrade the HANA database from version 2.0 to 2.0 SPS 05. The upgrade process requires a system copy to a new instance. The company wants to minimize the downtime during the upgrade and ensure that the existing system remains available until the new system is ready. The current HANA instance has 1 TB of data. The company has a test environment that can be used for the upgrade. Which approach should the company take to minimize downtime?

Accepted Answer

Set up SAP HANA System Replication from the production instance to a new instance. Perform the upgrade on the replica. Once upgraded, perform a takeover to make the new instance the primary.. SAP HANA System Replication allows you to replicate data from the production instance to a new instance in near real-time. You can then perform the upgrade on the replica while the production system remains fully available. Once the upgrade is complete and validated, a takeover operation promotes the replica to primary, minimizing downtime to just the seconds required for the takeover and DNS switch.

Answer

Use SAP HANA Studio to export the production database to a file, import it into a new instance, and upgrade. Then redirect users to the new instance.

Answer

Perform the upgrade directly on the production HANA instance during a maintenance window.

Answer

Take a full backup of the production HANA database, restore it to a new instance, and perform the upgrade on the new instance. Then switch DNS to the new instance.

Question 8

A company runs SAP on AWS and wants to implement a high-availability (HA) solution for SAP Central Services (ASCS/ERS) using Amazon EC2 instances. Which AWS service is essential for managing the virtual IP address (VIP) required for the HA cluster?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Route 53. Amazon Route 53 is essential for managing the virtual IP address (VIP) required for the SAP Central Services (ASCS/ERS) HA cluster because it provides DNS-based failover. When the active ASCS instance fails, the HA cluster updates a Route 53 DNS record to point to the standby instance's IP address, effectively migrating the VIP. This allows clients to reconnect using the same DNS name without needing an elastic IP or a network-level VIP, which is not natively supported in AWS for this use case.

Answer

AWS Global Accelerator

Answer

AWS WAF

Answer

Application Load Balancer

Question 9

An SAP Basis administrator is troubleshooting a slow-performing SAP ERP system on AWS. The system uses Amazon EBS volumes with Provisioned IOPS (PIOPS) for database storage. Which metric in Amazon CloudWatch would best indicate whether the EBS volume is experiencing a performance bottleneck?

Accepted Answer

VolumeQueueLength. VolumeQueueLength measures the number of pending I/O requests waiting to be serviced by the EBS volume. A sustained high queue length (e.g., consistently above 1 per optimized IOPS) indicates that the volume is saturated and cannot keep up with the workload, which directly causes performance bottlenecks for SAP ERP database operations. This metric is the most direct indicator of a bottleneck because it reflects backpressure from the storage subsystem.

Answer

VolumeIdleTime

Answer

VolumeReadOps

Answer

VolumeThroughputPercentage

Question 10

A company is planning to migrate an SAP HANA database to AWS. They need to ensure that the instance type supports the required amount of memory and that the storage can handle high IOPS. Which AWS service can help determine the appropriate instance type and storage configuration based on the SAP workload requirements?

Accepted Answer

AWS Pricing Calculator. AWS Pricing Calculator is the correct choice because it allows you to input specific SAP HANA workload requirements, such as memory size and expected IOPS, and then outputs a list of compatible EC2 instance types (e.g., x1e.32xlarge or u-6tb1.metal) and corresponding EBS or instance store configurations. It directly maps SAP-certified instance families and storage options to the required performance metrics, ensuring compliance with SAP's memory and IOPS guidelines.

Answer

Amazon Inspector

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 11

An SAP administrator is setting up an SAP HANA system replication across two AWS Availability Zones (AZs). The primary and secondary instances use EBS volumes for data and log storage. What is the best practice for ensuring data consistency and minimizing data loss during a failover?

Accepted Answer

Enable synchronous replication mode in SAP HANA.. SAP HANA synchronous replication mode ensures that a transaction is committed on both the primary and secondary instances before an acknowledgment is sent to the application. This guarantees zero data loss (RPO=0) during a failover, because the secondary always has an identical copy of the committed data. For cross-AZ deployments, this is the best practice to maintain data consistency while still providing high availability.

Answer

Take frequent EBS snapshots of the primary volume and restore them on the secondary.

Answer

Use asynchronous replication mode for better performance.

Answer

Configure the EBS volumes as Multi-Attach to allow both instances to access the same volume.

Question 12

A company runs SAP NetWeaver on AWS. The system uses a shared file system for transport files via Amazon EFS. Recently, the transport directory performance has degraded. Which configuration change is most likely to improve the I/O performance for the transport directory?

Accepted Answer

Enable EFS performance mode with Max I/O.. Enabling EFS Max I/O performance mode provides higher throughput and IOPS for workloads with high I/O demands, such as SAP transport directories. Max I/O mode scales horizontally by distributing file data across multiple servers, which improves performance for parallel access patterns common in SAP transport operations.

Answer

Migrate the transport directory to an Amazon EBS volume.

Answer

Use Amazon S3 with a mount point.

Answer

Use EFS with Bursting Throughput mode.

Question 13

A company is deploying an SAP BusinessObjects (BO) platform on AWS. To ensure high availability of the BO servers, which AWS service should be used to distribute incoming traffic across multiple BO instances in different Availability Zones?

Accepted Answer

Application Load Balancer. The Application Load Balancer (ALB) operates at Layer 7 and can distribute HTTP/HTTPS traffic across multiple SAP BusinessObjects instances in different Availability Zones, providing high availability and health-check-based routing. ALB supports path-based routing and SSL termination, which are essential for modern web applications like SAP BO. It is the correct choice because it is designed for HTTP/HTTPS traffic and can balance load across instances in multiple AZs.

Answer

NAT Gateway

Answer

Amazon Route 53

Answer

Classic Load Balancer

Question 14

An SAP administrator needs to implement a backup strategy for an SAP HANA database on AWS that provides point-in-time recovery (PITR) with minimal RPO. Which combination of AWS services should be used?

Accepted Answer

AWS Backup with Backint agent for SAP HANA. AWS Backup with the Backint agent for SAP HANA is the correct choice because it integrates directly with SAP HANA's native backup interface (Backint), enabling log backups and full/differential backups to Amazon S3. This combination supports point-in-time recovery (PITR) with minimal RPO by continuously backing up transaction logs, which is essential for meeting strict recovery objectives.

Answer

HANA backup to NFS on Amazon EFS

Answer

Amazon EBS snapshots of the HANA data volumes

Answer

Amazon S3 lifecycle policies

Question 15

During a migration of an SAP system to AWS, the administrator notices that the SAP application servers are experiencing high network latency when communicating with the SAP HANA database. The application and database servers are in different VPCs connected via VPC peering. Which design change would most effectively reduce the latency?

Accepted Answer

Place the application and database servers in the same subnet.. Placing the SAP application servers and the SAP HANA database in the same subnet eliminates the need for traffic to traverse a VPC peering connection, which introduces additional network hops and potential latency. In a single subnet, all traffic stays within the same VPC and uses the local network infrastructure, providing the lowest possible latency for SAP HANA communication, which is critical for performance.

Answer

Set up an AWS Direct Connect connection.

Answer

Enable Enhanced Networking on the EC2 instances.

Answer

Increase the bandwidth of the VPC peering connection.