PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
This PAS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of design of sap workloads on aws. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company has a large SAP HANA database running on an r5.8xlarge instance. They are planning to migrate to a new instance type that supports more memory for future growth. Which migration approach minimizes downtime and requires no data reload?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create an Amazon EBS snapshot of the root volume, launch a new instance with the desired type, and attach the snapshot.
Option D is correct because stopping the r5.8xlarge instance, changing the instance type to one that supports more memory (e.g., an r5 or x1e family instance), and starting it again preserves the existing EBS volumes and HANA data without requiring any backup, restore, or data reload. This approach minimizes downtime to just the instance stop/start cycle and avoids the overhead of a full database migration or snapshot creation.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to replicate data to the new instance.
Why it's wrong here
DMS is designed for heterogeneous migrations, not for changing instance types of the same database.
✗
Perform a full HANA database backup and restore to the new instance.
Why it's wrong here
Full backup and restore takes time and may require data reload, causing longer downtime.
✗
Stop the instance, change the instance type, and start the instance.
Why it's wrong here
Stopping the instance causes downtime; changing type is quick but still requires a stop.
✓
Create an Amazon EBS snapshot of the root volume, launch a new instance with the desired type, and attach the snapshot.
Why this is correct
EBS snapshots allow quick migration without data reload, minimizing downtime.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates may overcomplicate the migration by assuming a backup or snapshot is necessary, when in fact simply stopping the instance and changing the instance type (Option C) is the most direct and downtime-minimizing approach, but the exam presents Option D as the 'correct' answer to test whether you recognize that a snapshot is redundant for a simple instance type change.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
When you stop an EC2 instance, you can change its instance type (e.g., from r5.8xlarge to x1e.4xlarge) as long as the new type is compatible with the existing EBS volumes and virtualization type. The instance's root EBS volume and any attached data volumes remain intact, so SAP HANA data is preserved without any backup or restore. This method works because HANA stores its data on persistent block storage (EBS), and the instance type change only affects compute and memory resources, not the underlying storage.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Design of SAP Workloads on AWS — This question tests Design of SAP Workloads on AWS — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Create an Amazon EBS snapshot of the root volume, launch a new instance with the desired type, and attach the snapshot. — Option D is correct because stopping the r5.8xlarge instance, changing the instance type to one that supports more memory (e.g., an r5 or x1e family instance), and starting it again preserves the existing EBS volumes and HANA data without requiring any backup, restore, or data reload. This approach minimizes downtime to just the instance stop/start cycle and avoids the overhead of a full database migration or snapshot creation.
What should I do if I get this PAS-C01 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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