PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Test 3 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An SAP system on AWS requires persistent storage for its database logs. Which storage option should be used to meet the performance requirements of SAP HANA?

Accepted Answer

Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes. Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes provide the highest performance, durability, and low latency required for SAP HANA database logs. They offer up to 256,000 IOPS per volume and sub-millisecond latency, meeting SAP's certification requirements for persistent storage of HANA data and log volumes.

Answer

Instance store volumes

Answer

Amazon S3

Answer

Amazon EFS

Question 2

Refer to the exhibit. An SAP administrator created this IAM policy for an SAP application user that performs database backups to Amazon S3. The user reports that backup jobs fail with an access denied error. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The policy is missing s3:ListBucket permission on the bucket.. The error occurs because the IAM policy grants s3:PutObject and s3:DeleteObject on the bucket and its objects, but it does not include s3:ListBucket permission. When an SAP application performs a backup to S3, the AWS SDK or CLI often first lists the bucket to verify its existence or check for existing objects before writing. Without s3:ListBucket, the list operation fails, causing the access denied error even though the write permission is present.

Answer

The policy has a syntax error and is invalid.

Answer

The policy does not allow s3:PutObject for the bucket.

Answer

The Deny statement blocks all DeleteObject requests.

Question 3

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 4

A company is planning to migrate its SAP landscape to AWS. The landscape includes development, quality assurance, and production systems. The company wants to minimize costs by reusing resources across environments. Which AWS feature should be used to enforce resource tagging and compliance?

Accepted Answer

AWS Service Catalog with tag options.. AWS Service Catalog allows organizations to create and manage a catalog of approved IT services, and with tag options, it can enforce tagging and compliance policies. Option A is incorrect because AWS CloudFormation templates can include tags but do not enforce tagging policies across environments; they are for provisioning infrastructure. Option B is incorrect because AWS Resource Access Manager is used to share resources across accounts, not to enforce tagging or compliance. Option C is incorrect because AWS Config rules can monitor and enforce tagging compliance, but they are reactive rather than proactive governance; Service Catalog provides a more comprehensive solution for enforcing tagging during provisioning.

Answer

AWS CloudFormation templates with required tags.

Answer

AWS Resource Access Manager to share resources.

Answer

AWS Config rules to enforce tagging.

Question 5

A company runs SAP Business Suite on an SAP HANA database on AWS. The database uses EBS gp2 volumes. The operations team notices high latency during peak hours. The metrics show that the volume queue depth is consistently above the recommended threshold. What is the MOST cost-effective change to reduce latency?

Accepted Answer

Increase the size of the existing EBS gp2 volume to a larger size.. Increasing the size of an existing gp2 volume is the most cost-effective solution because gp2 volumes have a baseline performance of 3 IOPS per GB, and they can burst up to 3,000 IOPS for volumes up to 1,000 GB. By increasing the volume size, you raise the baseline IOPS, which reduces the queue depth without incurring the higher per-GB cost of io1 or io2 volumes. This directly addresses the high latency caused by queue depth exceeding the recommended threshold during peak hours.

Answer

Migrate from gp2 to io2 EBS volumes with the same size.

Answer

Modify the volume to use Provisioned IOPS (io1) with a higher IOPS value.

Answer

Add an additional EBS volume and stripe the volumes using LVM.

Question 6

A company has an SAP HANA database running on an EC2 instance with 1.9 TB of memory. The database requires persistent storage. The solutions architect must choose a storage configuration that provides the highest IOPS and throughput while maintaining data durability. Which storage option should the architect choose?

Accepted Answer

Use multiple io2 EBS volumes with Block Express striped together using LVM.. It combines multiple io2 Block Express EBS volumes striped via LVM, which delivers the highest possible IOPS and throughput for SAP HANA on AWS. io2 Block Express volumes support up to 256,000 IOPS and 4,000 MB/s throughput per volume, and striping multiple volumes linearly scales these limits to meet the demands of a 1.9 TB memory HANA database. This configuration also ensures data durability through EBS replication within an Availability Zone, unlike instance store volumes.

Answer

Use a single io2 Block Express EBS volume of the required size.

Answer

Use multiple gp3 EBS volumes striped together with LVM.

Answer

Use NVMe instance store volumes for the HANA data and log areas.

Question 7

A company runs its SAP ERP system on AWS. The database is SAP HANA on an EC2 instance. The system is critical and requires a recovery point objective (RPO) of less than 5 minutes and a recovery time objective (RTO) of less than 2 hours. Which solution meets these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Backup with the SAP HANA Backup and Restore feature (Backint integration) to perform continuous backups to S3.. AWS Backup with the SAP HANA Backup and Restore feature (Backint integration) provides continuous, incremental backups to Amazon S3, achieving an RPO of less than 5 minutes with automated, policy-driven backups. This solution minimizes operational overhead by eliminating manual scripting and infrastructure management, while supporting point-in-time recovery within the required RTO of under 2 hours.

Answer

Use EBS snapshots of the root and data volumes taken every 5 minutes.

Answer

Set up HANA system replication across two EC2 instances in different Availability Zones with manual failover.

Answer

Schedule manual HANA backups to S3 using cron scripts and hdbsql commands.

Question 8

A company is designing a new SAP environment on AWS. The SAP application servers communicate with the database over the network. The architect wants to minimize latency and maximize throughput. Which placement strategy should the architect use?

Accepted Answer

Place all servers in a single Availability Zone and use a cluster placement group.. A cluster placement group is the correct choice because it provides the lowest possible latency and highest throughput by ensuring that all SAP application and database servers are placed in close physical proximity within a single Availability Zone. This placement minimizes network hops and leverages non-blocking, high-bandwidth networking, which is critical for SAP's latency-sensitive communication between application and database layers.

Answer

Place the application servers in one Availability Zone and the database in a different Availability Zone.

Answer

Place the application servers in one VPC and the database in a different VPC connected via VPC peering.

Answer

Place the application servers in one AWS Region and the database in another Region.

Question 9

A company is migrating its SAP NetWeaver system to AWS and wants to implement a high-availability architecture for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS). Which TWO of the following are required components in a recommended AWS HA setup for ASCS and ERS?

Accepted Answer

A shared file system (e.g., Amazon EFS) to store the SAP transport directory and global profile.. In an SAP NetWeaver high-availability architecture on AWS, a shared file system such as Amazon EFS is required to store the SAP transport directory and global profile. This ensures that both the ASCS and ERS instances can access consistent configuration and transport files, which is essential for failover and cluster operations. Without a shared file system, the instances would have divergent configurations, breaking the HA setup.

Answer

An Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic between ASCS and ERS instances.

Answer

A read replica of the SAP HANA database to offload application traffic.

Answer

A secondary Windows Server Failover Cluster in a different Availability Zone.

Question 10

A company runs SAP S/4HANA on AWS with a large HANA database (10 TB). The database uses EBS gp3 volumes. The system experiences performance degradation due to high disk I/O. The architect decides to migrate to EBS io2 Block Express volumes. Which THREE factors should the architect consider when planning the migration?

Accepted Answer

The maximum IOPS per volume supported by io2 Block Express is 256,000.. Io2 Block Express volumes support a maximum IOPS of 256,000 per volume, which is significantly higher than the 16,000 IOPS limit of gp3. This high IOPS capability is critical for large SAP HANA databases (10 TB) that experience performance degradation due to high disk I/O, as it allows the database to handle bursty workloads without throttling.

Answer

SAP HANA supports RAID 0 across multiple io2 volumes without additional software.

Answer

io2 Block Express volumes can be attached to multiple EC2 instances simultaneously using EBS Multi-Attach.

Question 11

A company is running SAP S/4HANA on AWS. They are experiencing high read latency on their EBS volumes used for /usr/sap. Which of the following is the MOST effective way to improve read performance?

Accepted Answer

Use io2 Block Express volumes with provisioned IOPS.. The io2 Block Express volume type provides the highest durability and consistent low-latency performance for SAP workloads, with up to 256,000 provisioned IOPS per volume. For /usr/sap, which is sensitive to read latency due to frequent binary and configuration file access, io2 Block Express ensures predictable sub-millisecond latency even under high I/O demand, directly addressing the high read latency issue.

Answer

Change the volume type to gp3 with higher throughput.

Answer

Move to a larger instance type with more network bandwidth.

Answer

Configure RAID 0 across multiple volumes.

Question 12

A company plans to migrate their SAP HANA database to AWS. They require the highest availability with automatic failover in case of an AZ failure. Which architecture should they use?

Accepted Answer

Multi-AZ with HANA System Replication in sync mode and automatic failover.. It meets the requirement for highest availability with automatic failover in case of an AZ failure. HANA System Replication (HSR) in synchronous mode ensures zero data loss (RPO=0) by committing transactions only after they are replicated to the standby, and when combined with Multi-AZ deployment, it provides automatic failover across Availability Zones. This architecture is the AWS-recommended pattern for SAP HANA high availability, leveraging the AWS Multi-AZ concept with HSR's built-in automatic takeover capability.

Answer

Single AZ with HANA System Replication to a standby in the same AZ.

Answer

Single AZ with daily backups to Amazon S3.

Answer

Multi-AZ with HANA System Replication in async mode and manual failover.

Question 13

A company runs SAP Business Suite on AWS. They notice that their SAP application servers are not evenly distributing load across multiple instances. They have configured an Application Load Balancer (ALB) in front of the SAP Web Dispatchers. What is the MOST likely cause of uneven load distribution?

Accepted Answer

Sticky sessions (session stickiness) are enabled on the ALB.. When sticky sessions (session stickiness) are enabled on an Application Load Balancer, the ALB uses a cookie to bind a client's session to a specific target (SAP Web Dispatcher). This prevents the load balancer from distributing subsequent requests from that client to other healthy targets, causing an uneven distribution of load across the SAP application servers, especially if a few clients generate a disproportionate number of requests.

Answer

The ALB health check interval is too short.

Answer

Cross-zone load balancing is enabled.

Answer

The ALB is using the least outstanding requests routing algorithm.

Question 14

A company is designing a disaster recovery (DR) strategy for SAP S/4HANA on AWS. The primary site is in us-east-1. They want a secondary site in us-west-2 with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 2 hours. Which solution meets these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Use HANA System Replication in async mode to us-west-2.. HANA System Replication in asynchronous mode can meet the 15-minute RPO and 2-hour RTO requirements when combined with automatic failover. Asynchronous replication is recommended for cross-region DR on AWS to avoid performance impact from latency, and automatic failover minimizes operational overhead. Option D is not recommended because synchronous replication over long distances introduces latency that can degrade primary site performance and may not be feasible for cross-region scenarios.

Answer

Take hourly backups to S3 and restore in us-west-2 when needed.

Answer

Use HANA System Replication to us-west-2 with manual failover.

Answer

Use HANA System Replication in sync mode with automatic failover to us-west-2.

Question 15

A company is running SAP HANA on an r5.8xlarge instance. They want to scale up to meet increased memory requirements. Which instance family would be the MOST suitable for a scale-up scenario?

Accepted Answer

x1e.32xlarge. The x1e.32xlarge instance is part of the X1e family, which is specifically designed for high-memory workloads like SAP HANA. With 3,904 GiB of memory, it provides the largest memory capacity among AWS instances, making it the most suitable for scaling up SAP HANA to meet increased memory requirements. SAP HANA is an in-memory database, so scaling up requires instances with high memory-to-vCPU ratios, which the X1e family delivers.

Answer

r5.24xlarge

Answer

i3.16xlarge

Answer

c5.18xlarge