PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Test 25 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is running SAP ERP on AWS and is experiencing high costs due to underutilized EC2 instances. The SAP system is non-production and can tolerate interruptions. Which approach would most cost-effectively reduce costs without compromising the ability to resume operations quickly?

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

Accepted Answer

Use EC2 Spot Instances for the application servers and configure them to be terminated gracefully. EC2 Spot Instances offer significant cost savings (up to 90% compared to On-Demand) for fault-tolerant, non-production SAP workloads. By configuring graceful termination (e.g., using lifecycle hooks or AWS Systems Manager to drain SAP application server connections before the instance is interrupted), the system can resume quickly when capacity becomes available again, meeting the requirement for cost reduction without compromising rapid recovery.

Answer

Purchase Reserved Instances for the current usage to get a discount

Answer

Increase the instance size to improve performance and reduce runtime

Answer

Use Dedicated Hosts to reduce licensing costs

Question 2

An SAP administrator is setting up a new SAP HANA system on AWS and needs to ensure that the system can recover from an Availability Zone failure. Which strategy should they implement for high availability?

Accepted Answer

Set up HANA System Replication across two Availability Zones. HANA System Replication (HSR) is the native SAP mechanism for achieving high availability across Availability Zones (AZs). By replicating data synchronously or synchronously in-memory to a standby instance in a different AZ, it ensures automatic failover with minimal data loss in the event of an AZ failure. This directly meets the requirement for recovery from an AZ failure without relying on storage-level or database-agnostic approaches.

Answer

Attach multiple Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) to the HANA instance

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Configure the HANA database with Amazon RDS Multi-AZ

Answer

Take EBS snapshots every hour and restore in another AZ

Question 3

An SAP administrator is designing a backup strategy for an SAP HANA database on AWS. They want to use the Backint interface with Amazon S3. Which THREE components are required? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

IAM role with permissions to write to the S3 bucket. Option B is correct because the AWS Backint Agent running on the SAP HANA instance must authenticate to AWS and requires an IAM role (or credentials) granting s3:PutObject and related permissions to write backup data into the target bucket. Option C is correct because the AWS Backint Agent for SAP HANA is the software component that implements SAP's Backint API, translating HANA backup and recovery calls into Amazon S3 API operations. Option E is correct because the backups themselves are stored as objects in an S3 bucket, which is the destination the Backint Agent writes to and reads from during recovery. Option A is not required because the backup catalog is maintained by SAP HANA itself (in the database and its own storage), not on dedicated EBS volumes for this S3-based Backint design. Option D is not required because S3 Transfer Acceleration is an optional performance feature for speeding up uploads over long distances, not a prerequisite for using Backint with Amazon S3.

Answer

EBS volumes for the backup catalog

Answer

S3 Transfer Acceleration enabled

Question 4

A company is planning to migrate its SAP HANA database to AWS. They require high availability with automatic failover in less than 30 seconds. Which AWS service should be used to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Route 53. Amazon Route 53 can be configured with health checks and DNS failover to automatically redirect traffic to a standby SAP HANA database in a different Availability Zone or region when the primary fails. With a low TTL (e.g., 5 seconds) and active-passive routing, failover can occur in under 30 seconds, meeting the high availability requirement.

Answer

Elastic Load Balancing

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AWS Direct Connect

Answer

AWS Global Accelerator

Question 5

A company runs SAP on AWS and needs to implement a disaster recovery strategy for their SAP NetWeaver system. The primary site is in us-east-1, and the DR site is in us-west-2. They want to minimize data loss and recovery time. Which approach meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use SAP HANA System Replication in asynchronous mode across regions.. SAP HANA System Replication in asynchronous mode across regions is the correct approach because it provides near-zero recovery point objective (RPO) with minimal impact on primary system performance, while enabling rapid failover to the DR region in us-west-2. Asynchronous replication is suitable for cross-region scenarios where network latency would make synchronous mode impractical, and it meets the requirement to minimize both data loss and recovery time for SAP NetWeaver.

Answer

Use SAP HANA System Replication in synchronous mode across regions.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to back up the SAP HANA database and restore in us-west-2.

Answer

Use Amazon S3 cross-region replication for SAP HANA data files.

Question 6

An SAP administrator notices that the SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance is experiencing high I/O latency. The instance is using EBS gp2 volumes. Which change would most effectively reduce I/O latency for the SAP HANA data volume?

Accepted Answer

Switch to io2 Block Express EBS volumes for the data volume.. Io2 Block Express volumes provide consistent, high-performance IOPS with sub-millisecond latency, which is critical for SAP HANA data volumes. Unlike gp2, which relies on burst credits and has variable performance, io2 Block Express delivers predictable low latency and up to 256,000 IOPS per volume, directly addressing the high I/O latency issue.

Answer

Use instance store SSDs for the SAP HANA data volume.

Answer

Increase the size of the EBS gp2 volume to increase baseline IOPS.

Answer

Configure RAID 0 across multiple gp2 volumes.

Question 7

A company wants to run SAP S/4HANA on AWS and needs to ensure that the SAP application and database are deployed according to AWS best practices. Which deployment method should they use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Launch Wizard for SAP. AWS Launch Wizard for SAP is the correct deployment method because it provides a guided, best-practice-based deployment experience specifically for SAP S/4HANA, automatically provisioning EC2 instances, storage, and networking while validating SAP requirements such as kernel compatibility, sizing, and high availability. It reduces manual effort and errors by integrating directly with AWS services like Amazon EBS and Elastic Load Balancing, ensuring compliance with SAP on AWS best practices.

Answer

Manual deployment using EC2 and RDS

Answer

AWS Quick Start for SAP

Answer

AWS CloudFormation with custom templates

Question 8

An SAP Basis administrator is setting up an SAP HANA database in a Multi-AZ deployment on AWS. They need to ensure that the database remains available during an Availability Zone failure. Which AWS services should be used together to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA System Replication and Amazon Route 53. SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) provides synchronous or asynchronous replication of HANA databases across Availability Zones, ensuring data consistency and failover capability. Amazon Route 53 with health checks and DNS failover routing automatically redirects client traffic to the standby HANA instance in the secondary AZ when the primary fails, together achieving Multi-AZ high availability for SAP HANA.

Answer

AWS CloudWatch alarms and AWS Lambda

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Auto Scaling groups and Elastic Load Balancer

Answer

Amazon RDS Multi-AZ and Route 53

Question 9

A company has an SAP HANA database running on a r5.8xlarge EC2 instance with 3.5 TB of data. They want to back up the database to Amazon S3 using Backint. What is the most cost-effective and performant backup strategy?

Accepted Answer

Use multiple parallel Backint streams to a single S3 bucket with S3 Standard storage.. Backint is the native SAP HANA backup integration that sends backup data directly to Amazon S3. Using multiple parallel Backint streams maximizes throughput by leveraging S3's high request rate limits, and S3 Standard storage provides the low-latency access needed for frequent backups and restores without incurring retrieval costs. This combination is both cost-effective and performant for a 3.5 TB database.

Answer

Use EBS snapshots and copy them to S3.

Answer

Use multiple parallel Backint streams to multiple S3 buckets with S3 Glacier storage.

Answer

Use a single Backint stream to one S3 bucket with S3 Standard storage.

Question 10

A company is running SAP ERP on AWS and wants to ensure that their SAP system is backed up according to SAP best practices. Which backup method should they use for the SAP HANA database?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA Backint to Amazon S3. SAP HANA Backint to Amazon S3 is the correct backup method because it integrates directly with SAP HANA's native backup interface (Backint), allowing SAP to manage backup and restore operations natively. This approach supports SAP best practices for HANA database backups, including full, incremental, and differential backups, and leverages Amazon S3 for durable, scalable storage without requiring external scripting or manual snapshot coordination.

Answer

AWS Backup service

Answer

EBS snapshots of the data volumes

Answer

Amazon S3 replication

Question 11

A company is running SAP HANA on AWS and wants to encrypt the EBS volumes at rest. They also need to manage the encryption keys themselves. Which solution should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS KMS with a customer managed key (CMK). AWS KMS with a customer managed key (CMK) allows the company to have full control over the encryption keys used for EBS volume encryption, including key rotation, access policies, and disabling or deleting the key. This meets the requirement to manage the encryption keys themselves while still leveraging AWS KMS for key management and auditing.

Answer

Enable EBS encryption with the default AWS managed KMS key

Answer

Use AWS CloudHSM to store keys

Answer

Use AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store

Question 12

An SAP administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue with SAP HANA. The database is running on an EC2 instance with EBS volumes. Which TWO metrics should be monitored to identify disk I/O bottlenecks? (Choose 2.)

Accepted Answer

VolumeReadBytes. Options C (VolumeReadBytes) and D (VolumeWriteBytes) are correct because these are Amazon CloudWatch EBS metrics that directly quantify the volume of data read from and written to the EBS volumes, so sustained high or spiking values reveal the disk I/O load driving an SAP HANA bottleneck. Together they show the read/write throughput demand placed on the underlying EBS storage, which is exactly what an administrator needs to correlate with HANA's I/O performance. Option A (VolumeIdleTime) measures idle seconds and is not marked correct here, and while it can hint at utilization, it does not express the read/write byte volume used to pinpoint I/O bottlenecks. Option B (NetworkIn) reflects inbound network traffic, which is unrelated to EBS disk I/O. Option E (CPUUtilization) measures processor usage and, although relevant to overall instance performance, does not identify disk I/O bottlenecks.

Answer

VolumeIdleTime

Answer

NetworkIn

Answer

CPUUtilization

Question 13

A company is designing a disaster recovery solution for SAP S/4HANA. They need to meet an RPO of 15 minutes and an RTO of 2 hours. Which THREE components should be included in the DR plan? (Choose 3.)

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA System Replication in async mode. SAP HANA System Replication in async mode (B) is correct because it continuously ships redo log changes to a secondary HANA system, and with async replication the RPO is typically well under 15 minutes, satisfying the 15-minute RPO requirement. Amazon Route 53 DNS failover (D) is correct because it provides the automated traffic redirection needed to switch clients to the DR region within the 2-hour RTO window, using health checks and failover routing policies. Pre-built AMIs for SAP application servers (E) are correct because they allow rapid, consistent provisioning of the SAP application tier in the DR region, which is essential to meet the 2-hour RTO rather than rebuilding servers from scratch. EBS snapshots every 15 minutes (A) are not the right choice because snapshot schedules cannot guarantee a 15-minute RPO for an active HANA database and would risk data loss and long restore times. AWS CloudEndure Disaster Recovery (C) is not appropriate here because it is a block-level replication service for servers, not the SAP-certified mechanism for replicating HANA in-memory data with consistency.

Answer

EBS snapshots taken every 15 minutes

Answer

AWS CloudEndure Disaster Recovery

Question 14

An SAP administrator runs the AWS CLI command shown in the exhibit to check the configuration of an SAP HANA EC2 instance. The instance is running in us-east-1a. They need to deploy a second SAP HANA instance for high availability in a different Availability Zone. Which Availability Zone should be used?

Accepted Answer

us-east-1b. For SAP HANA high availability, the secondary instance must be deployed in a different Availability Zone within the same AWS Region to achieve multi-AZ resilience. Since the primary instance is in us-east-1a, the correct choice is us-east-1b, which is a distinct Availability Zone in the same region (us-east-1). This ensures low-latency replication and compliance with SAP's requirement for synchronous replication within a single region.

Answer

us-west-2a

Answer

Any Availability Zone

Answer

us-east-1a

Question 15

A company is migrating an SAP S/4HANA system to AWS and needs to choose the storage for the HANA database. The database requires high IOPS and low latency. Which AWS storage solution is most suitable?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes. Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes are designed for mission-critical SAP HANA workloads, offering up to 256,000 IOPS per volume and sub-millisecond latency. They provide 99.999% durability and are the only EBS volume type certified by SAP for production HANA databases on AWS, meeting the high IOPS and low latency requirements.

Answer

Amazon EFS

Answer

Amazon S3

Answer

Amazon EBS st1 volumes