PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Test 37 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company runs SAP S/4HANA on AWS. The system is deployed in a cluster across two Availability Zones using Pacemaker for high availability. The primary SAP HANA node fails, and the failover to the secondary node is successful. However, after failover, the application servers cannot connect to the database because the database IP address changed. The application servers are configured to use the IP address of the primary node. The company needs a solution that allows the application servers to connect to the active database node without reconfiguration after failover. Which solution should the company implement?

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

Accepted Answer

Deploy an internal Network Load Balancer (NLB) with a static IP and target the HANA nodes. An internal Network Load Balancer (NLB) provides a static private IP address that the application servers can use as the database endpoint. The NLB targets the HANA nodes, and its health checks automatically route traffic to the active node after failover, so no application reconfiguration is needed. This is the AWS-recommended pattern for SAP HANA high availability.

Answer

Use Amazon Route 53 DNS with a health check to point to the active node's IP

Answer

Associate an Elastic IP address to the active node using a script during failover

Answer

Configure a CNAME record in Route 53 that points to the primary node's DNS name

Question 2

A company is deploying SAP S/4HANA on AWS and needs to back up the HANA database to Amazon S3. The database is 1 TB and changes frequently. The backup must be completed within 4 hours. What is the most efficient backup method?

Accepted Answer

Configure SAP HANA Backint agent to stream backups directly to Amazon S3.. SAP HANA Backint agent is the native SAP-certified interface for HANA database backups, allowing direct streaming to Amazon S3 without intermediate file exports. It supports parallel backup streams, compression, and encryption, making it the most efficient method for large, frequently changing databases. This approach meets the 4-hour backup window by leveraging HANA's multi-streaming capabilities and S3's high throughput.

Answer

Take EBS snapshots of the HANA data volumes and copy them to S3.

Answer

Export the HANA database to a file and manually upload to S3 using AWS CLI.

Answer

Use AWS Backup to schedule HANA database backups to S3.

Question 3

A company runs SAP S/4HANA on AWS with an application server tier of multiple EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. Users connect via SAP GUI using a hostname that resolves to the ALB. After a scaling event, some users report that their sessions are dropped and they must log on again. The SAP Basis team confirms that the application servers themselves are healthy and that no instance was terminated. Which design change will resolve the session drops?

Accepted Answer

Enable sticky sessions (session affinity) on the Application Load Balancer target group.. SAP GUI connections are stateful; the load balancer must consistently send a user's traffic to the same application server. Enabling stickiness on the target group achieves this without changing the load balancer type or relying on timeouts. The other changes either do not provide application-level affinity or address unrelated SAP internal mechanisms.

Answer

Increase the ALB idle timeout to 3600 seconds and enable connection draining.

Answer

Change the ALB to a Network Load Balancer and register the application servers as targets.

Answer

Configure the SAP application servers to use a shared enqueue replication server and a shared memory store.

Question 4

A company runs an SAP S/4HANA system on AWS with a single SAP HANA database on an EC2 instance. The system has a strict requirement that the database must not lose any committed transactions in the event of a single EC2 instance failure. The company wants to minimize recovery time. Which storage configuration should be used for the SAP HANA data and log volumes?

Accepted Answer

Use Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes for data and log, and configure SAP HANA system replication to a secondary instance in another Availability Zone with synchronous mode.. To achieve zero data loss and fast recovery, the design must combine high-performance storage with synchronous replication. io2 Block Express provides the necessary IOPS and latency for HANA, while synchronous system replication to another Availability Zone ensures no committed transaction is lost and enables rapid failover.

Answer

Use Amazon S3 for data and log volumes via the SAP HANA Vora interface.

Answer

Use Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes for data and log, and enable EBS Multi-Attach to share the volumes with a standby instance.

Answer

Use Amazon EBS gp3 volumes for data and log, with snapshots taken every 15 minutes.

Question 5

A company runs an SAP S/4HANA system on AWS with the application servers on Amazon EC2 instances and the SAP HANA database on a separate EC2 instance. Users report intermittent slow response times during month-end processing. Amazon CloudWatch metrics show that the application server instances have high CPU utilization but low network throughput, and the SAP HANA database has low CPU utilization. The SAP Basis team wants to improve performance without over-provisioning. Which action should they take?

Accepted Answer

Increase the size of the application server EC2 instances to a larger instance type with more vCPUs.. The performance data points to the application servers as the bottleneck because they have high CPU utilization while the database has low CPU utilization. Scaling up the application server instances provides additional compute resources to handle the increased processing demand during month-end closing. This approach is more effective than changing network settings, database resources, or load balancing, which do not address the CPU constraint on the application layer.

Answer

Migrate the SAP HANA database to a larger EC2 instance type with more memory.

Answer

Configure an Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic across multiple application server instances.

Answer

Enable enhanced networking with the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) on the application server instances.

Question 6

A company runs SAP NetWeaver Application Server ABAP on AWS across two Availability Zones to protect against zone failure. The ASCS instance sits in Availability Zone A, and the database sits in Availability Zone A as well. During a recent test, the team failed over the ASCS to a standby EC2 instance in Availability Zone B and observed that the enqueue server lost all lock table contents, forcing a full restart of application servers. Which design change should the company make to preserve lock table contents during an ASCS failover?

Accepted Answer

Configure the ASCS in Availability Zone A and the ERS in Availability Zone B, with an overlay IP address that the ERS takes over during failover so enqueue replication can preserve lock entries.. The lock table lives in the standalone enqueue server's memory, so preserving it across failover requires an enqueue replication server running in a separate Availability Zone that takes over an overlay IP address. This lets the ERS assume the enqueue server role with replicated lock entries intact, avoiding the full application server restart caused by losing lock contents.

Answer

Enable Multi-AZ on the Amazon RDS for SAP HANA database and point the ASCS message server to the RDS endpoint so that locks are stored in the database.

Answer

Deploy the ASCS and ERS on the same EC2 instance in Availability Zone A and rely on a Network Load Balancer to redirect clients during failover.

Answer

Place the ASCS behind an Application Load Balancer with sticky sessions and configure the message server to re-register clients after failover.

Question 7

A company runs SAP S/4HANA on AWS with the HANA database on an x1e.32xlarge EC2 instance. The system must be highly available across two Availability Zones within a single AWS Region. The company requires an RPO of zero and an RTO of less than 15 minutes. Which approach should be used to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Deploy SAP HANA with synchronous replication to a secondary EC2 instance in a different Availability Zone using SUSE HAE, and use an overlay IP address for automatic failover.. SUSE HAE with synchronous replication across Availability Zones is the recommended AWS solution for SAP HANA high availability with zero data loss and rapid failover. The overlay IP ensures seamless reconnection. Other options fail to meet RPO=0 or RTO<15 minutes, or use unsupported services.

Answer

Deploy SAP HANA on a single EC2 instance with frequent EBS snapshots every 5 minutes, and restore from snapshot in case of failure.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to continuously replicate SAP HANA data to a standby instance in another Availability Zone, and manually promote the standby during a failure.

Answer

Configure SAP HANA system replication in asynchronous mode to a secondary instance in another Availability Zone, and use an Application Load Balancer to distribute connections.

Question 8

An SAP Basis team is deploying a new SAP S/4HANA production system on AWS. The database layer will run on Amazon EC2 with SAP HANA, and the team wants a storage configuration for the HANA data and log volumes that provides the lowest and most consistent latency. Which storage option should the team choose for the HANA data and log volumes?

Accepted Answer

Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2 Block Express) EBS volumes attached to the HANA instance, with IOPS and throughput sized to the SAP HANA storage KPIs.. SAP HANA data and log volumes require block storage with very low, consistent latency and provisioned IOPS. io2 Block Express EBS volumes meet the SAP HANA storage KPIs and are the validated option for EC2-based HANA deployments, while object stores and network file systems cannot deliver the required block-level performance.

Answer

Amazon S3 buckets mounted through a file gateway to provide virtually unlimited capacity for HANA data and log files.

Answer

Amazon FSx for Lustre file system mounted on the HANA instance to serve data and log volumes over the network.

Answer

General Purpose SSD (gp3) EBS volumes sized at 16,000 IOPS and 1,000 MiB/s to balance cost and performance.

Question 9

A company is designing a new SAP S/4HANA system on AWS. The database will run on an EC2 instance with SAP HANA, and the company wants to use Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP for the /hana/shared file system. The company also needs to store SAP HANA backups in Amazon S3 and retain them for seven years. Which combination of storage design choices meets these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Use an Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP file system for /hana/shared, store backups in an S3 bucket with a lifecycle policy that transitions objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive after 90 days, and use the SAP HANA backint agent to write directly to S3.. Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is a supported shared file system for SAP HANA and removes the need to manage a file server. The SAP HANA backint agent writes backups directly to Amazon S3, and S3 lifecycle policies transition objects to S3 Glacier Deep Archive for long-term retention. Together these choices meet the shared storage and seven-year retention requirements with the least operational overhead.

Answer

Use an Amazon EFS file system for /hana/shared, store backups on an EBS volume, and copy the EBS snapshots to S3 Glacier Deep Archive by using a custom Lambda function.

Answer

Use an Amazon FSx for Lustre file system for /hana/shared, store backups on an Amazon S3 bucket with S3 Standard-Infrequent Access, and mount the bucket to the HANA instance by using an S3 File Gateway.

Answer

Use an Amazon FSx for Windows File Server file system for /hana/shared, store backups on the same file system, and enable AWS Backup to copy the backups to a vault in another Region for long-term retention.

Question 10

A company is designing a high availability architecture for SAP HANA on AWS. The primary HANA database runs on an EC2 instance in Availability Zone A. The company wants to implement a standby HANA database in Availability Zone B with automatic failover. Which AWS service should be used to orchestrate the failover?

Accepted Answer

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension. For automatic failover of SAP HANA on AWS, a cluster management solution that supports HANA system replication is required. SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension is a validated and supported option that provides the necessary resource agents and orchestration to promote a standby HANA instance and update the SAP application layer, ensuring a reliable failover process.

Answer

AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery

Answer

Amazon Route 53 with health checks

Answer

AWS Systems Manager Automation

Question 11

A company is deploying a new SAP NetWeaver application server on AWS. The SAP Basis team wants to ensure that the application server can be quickly recovered in case of an instance failure. The application server runs on a single EC2 instance with an EBS volume for the SAP binaries and instance-specific data. The company requires an RTO of 30 minutes and an RPO of 5 minutes. Which design should the SAP administrator implement?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) to continuously replicate the EC2 instance and its EBS volumes to a staging area, and configure a recovery plan to launch the instance in case of failure.. AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) provides continuous replication of the entire server, including the operating system, applications, and data, to a staging area. It enables recovery with minimal data loss (RPO in seconds) and can launch a recovery instance quickly, meeting the 30-minute RTO. For SAP application servers that are not stateless, DRS is a robust solution for disaster recovery.

Answer

Place the EC2 instance in an Auto Scaling group with a minimum and maximum size of 1, and configure a launch template with the EBS volume snapshot ID.

Answer

Configure the EC2 instance with a detailed CloudWatch alarm that triggers an AWS Lambda function to restart the instance.

Answer

Create an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) of the EC2 instance daily and store it in Amazon S3. In case of failure, launch a new instance from the latest AMI.

Question 12

A company is deploying a new SAP NetWeaver application server on AWS. The SAP application must be able to communicate with the HANA database and other SAP components within the same VPC. The company wants to minimize latency and ensure that the application servers can be quickly scaled. Which AWS service should be used to provide a virtual network for the SAP deployment?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC). Amazon VPC is the foundational service for creating a virtual network in AWS. It allows you to define subnets, route tables, and gateways, enabling secure and efficient communication between SAP application servers and the HANA database. Other services like Direct Connect, Transit Gateway, and Route 53 serve different networking purposes and do not provide the core virtual network.

Answer

AWS Direct Connect

Answer

AWS Transit Gateway

Answer

Amazon Route 53

Question 13

A company is planning to run a scale-out SAP HANA database on AWS to support a large SAP Business Warehouse workload. The design must allow the worker nodes to share the same HANA data and log storage while meeting SAP's requirements for scale-out on AWS. Which TWO design elements should the company include? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

A shared file system such as Amazon FSx for Lustre or a supported clustered file system mounted on all HANA worker nodes for the data and log volumes.. HANA scale-out on AWS requires a shared data and log area accessible to all worker nodes, provided by a validated shared or clustered file system, plus SAP-certified EC2 instance types for the master and worker hosts. Isolated per-node volumes and general-purpose file systems do not meet the shared-storage and performance requirements of a supported scale-out topology.

Answer

A separate EBS io2 volume attached exclusively to each worker node for its own data and log volumes, isolated from the other nodes.

Answer

A single r5.24xlarge instance configured with multiple EBS volumes striped together to emulate scale-out within one host.

Answer

Amazon EFS mounted on all worker nodes to provide the shared data and log area for HANA.

Question 14

A company is deploying an SAP NetWeaver application server on AWS. The application server must access a shared file system for /sapmnt and must be able to survive the failure of a single Availability Zone. The company wants to use a managed AWS service to reduce administrative effort. Which solution should be used?

Accepted Answer

Deploy an Amazon EFS file system with mount targets in multiple Availability Zones and mount it from the SAP application servers by using NFS.. Amazon EFS is a managed NFS file system that supports mount targets in multiple Availability Zones, so it remains accessible if one AZ fails. It can be mounted by Linux-based SAP NetWeaver application servers for /sapmnt, and AWS handles the underlying file system management. This meets the shared file system and AZ-resilience requirements with less administrative effort than self-managed options.

Answer

Create an Amazon EBS volume in one Availability Zone and attach it to all application server instances in the Auto Scaling group.

Answer

Deploy an AWS Storage Gateway file gateway in each Availability Zone and present an NFS share to the SAP application servers.

Answer

Deploy an Amazon FSx for Windows File Server file system in a Multi-AZ configuration and mount it from the SAP application servers by using SMB.

Question 15

A company is deploying a new SAP S/4HANA system on AWS. The SAP HANA database will run on a single Amazon EC2 instance with multiple EBS volumes. The company requires that the database can be recovered to any point in time within the last 14 days. Which backup configuration should be implemented to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Use SAP HANA's native backup tools to perform full data backups and continuous log backups, storing them in Amazon S3 with a lifecycle policy for 14-day retention.. Point-in-time recovery for SAP HANA requires continuous transaction log backups in addition to regular full data backups. Only SAP HANA's native backup tools provide the necessary log stream and recovery catalog to restore to any point in time. Storing these backups in Amazon S3 with a lifecycle policy for retention ensures durability and cost-effective long-term storage. Other methods like snapshots or replication do not capture the transaction log continuously and therefore cannot meet the requirement.

Answer

Configure SAP HANA System Replication to a secondary EC2 instance in another Availability Zone, and use the secondary for point-in-time recovery.

Answer

Enable AWS Backup for the EC2 instance and create a daily backup plan with a 14-day retention period.

Answer

Schedule EBS snapshots of the HANA data and log volumes every hour, and retain them for 14 days.