PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Test 4 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is migrating its SAP ERP system to AWS. The system requires high availability across two Availability Zones. Which AWS service should be used to manage the virtual IP address for the SAP Central Services (ASCS/ERS) cluster?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Route 53. Amazon Route 53 is used to manage the virtual IP address for the SAP Central Services (ASCS/ERS) cluster by leveraging DNS-based failover. In a multi-AZ SAP cluster, Route 53 health checks monitor the active node and automatically update the DNS record to point to the healthy node's IP address, enabling clients to connect to the virtual hostname without relying on a floating IP. This approach is recommended by AWS for SAP deployments because it avoids the need for a shared IP across Availability Zones, which is not natively supported in AWS.

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Elastic IP address

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Network Load Balancer

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AWS Global Accelerator

Question 2

An SAP administrator needs to back up an SAP HANA database running on an Amazon EC2 instance. The requirement is to perform daily backups to Amazon S3 with minimal cost and impact on database performance. Which backup strategy should be used?

Accepted Answer

Use SAP HANA Backint integration to back up to S3. Option B is correct because SAP HANA Backint integration allows direct, streaming backups from the HANA database to Amazon S3, which minimizes performance impact by offloading backup processing to the Backint agent and avoids intermediate storage. This approach is cost-effective as it uses S3's low-cost storage and eliminates the need for additional infrastructure, meeting the requirement for daily backups with minimal cost and database performance impact.

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Use AWS Backup with the SAP HANA plugin

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Create EBS snapshots of the database volumes

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Configure S3 Lifecycle policies to move logs

Question 3

An SAP system on AWS is experiencing high latency in database transactions. The SAP HANA database is running on an r5.24xlarge instance with GP3 EBS volumes. CloudWatch metrics show high Write IOPS but low Read IOPS. The application team expects high write throughput. What should be changed to improve write performance?

Accepted Answer

Switch to io2 Block Express volumes with higher IOPS. The correct answer is D because the workload requires high write throughput, and GP3 volumes have a baseline IOPS of 16,000 with a maximum of 16,000 IOPS at no additional cost, but burst credits are limited. io2 Block Express volumes offer up to 256,000 IOPS with consistent sub-millisecond latency, which directly addresses the high write IOPS demand without throttling. This aligns with SAP HANA's requirement for predictable, high-performance storage for database transactions.

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Increase the EBS read throughput

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Use a larger instance type like r6i.32xlarge

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Increase the GP3 volume IOPS

Question 4

A company is designing a disaster recovery (DR) strategy for SAP S/4HANA on AWS. The primary region is us-east-1 and the DR region is us-west-2. The RPO is 15 minutes and RTO is 1 hour. Which approach should be used to replicate SAP HANA data?

Accepted Answer

Configure HANA System Replication across regions. HANA System Replication (HSR) is the only option that meets the 15-minute RPO and 1-hour RTO for SAP HANA data replication across regions. HSR uses log-based asynchronous replication to continuously ship redo logs to the DR region, enabling near-real-time data synchronization with minimal data loss. This is the native SAP-recommended method for cross-region DR of SAP HANA databases.

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Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication

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Use Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication for backup files

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Use AWS Backup cross-region copy of EBS snapshots

Question 5

An SAP application server on an EC2 instance is unable to connect to the SAP HANA database on another EC2 instance. Both instances are in the same VPC and security groups allow traffic. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The security group for the database instance does not allow inbound traffic on the HANA port. Option B is correct because the most likely cause is that the security group attached to the SAP HANA database instance does not have an inbound rule allowing traffic on the SAP HANA database port (typically 30015 for HANA system DB or 3NN13 for tenant DBs). Even if the security group for the application server allows outbound traffic, the database security group must explicitly permit inbound TCP traffic from the application server's security group or IP address on the correct HANA port. Without this rule, the database will reject the connection at the instance level.

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The VPC does not have an Internet Gateway

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Network ACLs are blocking traffic

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The route table does not have a local route

Question 6

An SAP system on AWS uses a shared file system via Amazon EFS for transport directory (/usr/sap/trans). The system experiences slow batch jobs. Monitoring shows high read latency on EFS. Which action would most likely reduce latency?

Accepted Answer

Use EFS Max I/O performance mode or Provisioned Throughput. EFS Max I/O performance mode is designed to scale to higher levels of aggregate throughput and IOPS with lower latencies for workloads like SAP transport directories that experience high concurrency and throughput demands. Provisioned Throughput allows you to specify a higher throughput level independent of the amount of data stored, directly addressing the high read latency issue. This is the most effective action because it optimizes the file system's performance characteristics for the SAP batch job workload.

Answer

Use a larger EC2 instance for the application server

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Migrate the transport directory to Amazon S3

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Move the transport directory to instance store volumes

Question 7

A company running SAP on AWS wants to automate the start and stop of non-production instances to save costs. Which AWS service is best suited for scheduling instance state changes?

Accepted Answer

AWS Instance Scheduler. AWS Instance Scheduler is a purpose-built solution that uses AWS CloudFormation to deploy a scheduler that automatically starts and stops EC2 instances based on defined schedules. It is the recommended approach for SAP non-production instances because it natively supports tagging, time zones, and periodic schedules without requiring custom code, making it the most cost-effective and maintainable option for this use case.

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Amazon CloudWatch Events (EventBridge)

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AWS Auto Scaling

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AWS Lambda with custom code

Question 8

An SAP HANA database administrator needs to restore a database from a backup stored in Amazon S3. The backup was taken using SAP HANA Backint. Which AWS service should be used to retrieve the backup files from S3?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA Backint agent. SAP HANA Backint is the native SAP interface for integrating with third-party backup tools. When a backup is taken using Backint, the backup files are stored in Amazon S3 via the Backint agent for SAP HANA on AWS. To restore from these backups, the same Backint agent must be used because it understands the proprietary metadata and file format that Backint writes to S3, and it handles the direct S3 API calls required to retrieve the files. Other methods like the S3 console or AWS CLI cannot interpret Backint-specific metadata or restore the database correctly.

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Amazon S3 console

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AWS CLI

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AWS Backup

Question 9

A company is deploying SAP NetWeaver on AWS and needs to ensure that the SAP application servers can communicate with the SAP HANA database using the hostname. The environment uses a Windows Domain Controller for Active Directory. Which DNS resolution strategy should be used?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory with DNS. Option A is correct because AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory provides a managed DNS service that integrates with Active Directory. This allows SAP application servers to resolve the SAP HANA database hostname via DNS, which is essential for SAP NetWeaver's hostname-based communication. The managed service ensures automatic DNS record updates and supports Windows-native DNS resolution without requiring custom infrastructure.

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Configure DHCP option sets to use custom DNS

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Install a DNS server on an Amazon Linux instance

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Use Amazon Route 53 Resolver outbound endpoint

Question 10

Which TWO of the following are valid strategies for reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) for SAP workloads on AWS?

Accepted Answer

Schedule start/stop of non-production instances using Instance Scheduler. Option A is correct because AWS Instance Scheduler allows you to define start and stop schedules for non-production SAP instances, significantly reducing compute costs during off-hours. This is a direct TCO reduction strategy for SAP workloads, as non-production environments often run 24/7 unnecessarily.

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Use GP2 EBS volumes instead of GP3

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Use Graviton-based instances for SAP application servers

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Deploy SAP HANA in Multi-AZ configuration

Question 11

Which THREE factors must be considered when choosing an EC2 instance type for SAP HANA production workloads?

Accepted Answer

EBS-optimized support for consistent I/O. Option C is correct because SAP HANA is an in-memory database that requires consistent, low-latency I/O for data persistence and log writes. EBS-optimized instances dedicate network bandwidth to EBS traffic, eliminating contention with other network traffic and ensuring predictable I/O performance, which is critical for production SAP HANA workloads.

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Burstable CPU performance (T3 instances)

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GPU compute capability

Question 12

Which TWO Amazon CloudWatch metrics are most useful for monitoring SAP HANA database performance on EC2?

Accepted Answer

CPUCreditBalance. CPUCreditBalance (A) is critical for monitoring SAP HANA on EC2 because HANA is a memory- and CPU-intensive in-memory database that can burst CPU usage. If the instance runs on a T-series burstable instance, a low CPUCreditBalance indicates the instance may soon be throttled, causing severe performance degradation for HANA queries. VolumeQueueLength (D) is essential because SAP HANA relies on fast, low-latency storage (e.g., io1/io2 EBS volumes) for data persistence; a high queue length signals that I/O requests are backing up, directly impacting HANA's savepoint and log write performance.

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NetworkIn

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DiskWriteOps

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StatusCheckFailed

Question 13

A company is planning to migrate its SAP HANA database to AWS. They need to ensure high availability with automatic failover. Which AWS service should they use to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

AWS Launch Wizard for SAP. AWS Launch Wizard for SAP is the correct service because it automates the deployment of SAP HANA on AWS with built-in high availability and automatic failover configurations. It orchestrates the setup of a multi-AZ cluster, including the installation of SAP HANA system replication, the configuration of a Pacemaker cluster, and the integration with AWS resources such as Elastic IPs and Amazon Route 53 health checks to ensure seamless failover.

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AWS OpsWorks

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AWS CloudFormation

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Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)

Question 14

An SAP system running on AWS is experiencing high latency to its S3-backed backup destination. Which architectural change would most effectively reduce backup latency?

Accepted Answer

Configure an S3 Gateway Endpoint in the VPC to route traffic to S3 privately.. An S3 Gateway Endpoint provides a private, low-latency path from the SAP EC2 instance to S3 without traversing the public internet or NAT gateways. This eliminates network hops and reduces latency by keeping traffic within the AWS network, directly addressing the high-latency issue for S3-backed backups.

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Increase the size of the EC2 instance running SAP to improve I/O throughput.

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Move the SAP instance to a different Availability Zone closer to the S3 bucket.

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Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration on the backup bucket.

Question 15

A company runs SAP on AWS with an Oracle database. They want to implement a disaster recovery strategy with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of less than 15 minutes and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of less than 2 hours. Which combination of AWS services should they use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for ongoing replication to a DR instance, and automated snapshots for fast recovery.. AWS DMS can perform ongoing replication from an Oracle source database to a target DR instance with minimal latency, enabling an RPO of less than 15 minutes. Automated snapshots of the DR instance allow fast recovery within the 2-hour RTO. This combination meets the stated RPO and RTO requirements without relying on Oracle-specific licensing or complex manual scripts.

Answer

Oracle Data Guard for replication and Amazon Route 53 for DNS failover.

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Amazon S3 cross-region replication for database files and a script to import them.

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AWS Backup to take weekly snapshots and restore in the DR region.