PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
A company is designing a disaster recovery (DR) strategy for its SAP system on AWS. The primary site is in us-east-1 and the DR site in us-west-2. The RTO is 4 hours and RPO is 1 hour. Which AWS service should be used for cross-region replication of the SAP HANA database backups stored in Amazon S3?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse AWS Backup (which manages backup schedules and retention) with S3 CRR (which handles object-level replication), leading them to select AWS Backup despite it not being designed for cross-region replication of existing S3 objects.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR).
Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) is the correct choice because it automatically replicates objects (including SAP HANA database backups) from a source S3 bucket in us-east-1 to a destination bucket in us-west-2, meeting the 1-hour RPO by ensuring backups are available in the DR region within minutes of upload. CRR operates asynchronously at the object level, requires no additional infrastructure, and directly supports the stated requirement for cross-region replication of S3-stored backups without introducing extra latency or complexity.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS Backup with a cross-region backup plan.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Backup is incorrect here because, while it provides cross-region backup plans, it is designed for managing backups of various AWS resources and storing them in a centralised vault, rather than directly replicating existing S3 objects. For the continuous cross-region replication of SAP HANA database backups *already stored in Amazon S3* with a 1-hour RPO, Amazon S3's native Cross-Region Replication (CRR) is the precise mechanism. This option is tempting as AWS Backup centralises and automates backup and recovery across multiple AWS services, making it ideal for a unified backup strategy for resources like EBS volumes or EC2 instances.
- ✗
Use AWS Storage Gateway to replicate backups.
Why it's wrong here
Storage Gateway is for hybrid cloud storage, not S3-to-S3 replication.
- ✓
Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR).
Why this is correct
S3 CRR automatically replicates new objects to another region, meeting RPO.
- ✗
Enable S3 Versioning on the source bucket.
Why it's wrong here
Versioning protects within the same region, not across regions.
Visual reference
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PAS-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PAS-C01 exam.