The answer is Amazon Route 53 with failover routing and SAP HANA system replication across Availability Zones. These two services work together to provide high availability for SAP HANA on AWS by combining DNS-level traffic management with database-level data synchronization. SAP HANA system replication continuously copies data from the primary to a secondary instance in a different Availability Zone, while Route 53’s failover routing policy automatically redirects client connections to the secondary instance if health checks detect a primary failure. On the AWS Certified SAP on AWS Specialty PAS-C01 exam, this pairing tests your understanding of how to architect resilient SAP landscapes without relying on single-AZ clustering. A common trap is selecting Elastic Load Balancing instead of Route 53, but ELB cannot handle the TCP-level replication traffic for HANA; DNS failover is the correct choice because it operates at the application layer and supports the manual or automatic failover triggered by HSR. Remember the mnemonic “DNS + HSR = HA” to recall that DNS routing and system replication are the two pillars of SAP HANA high availability on AWS.
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. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 is designing an SAP environment on AWS and needs to ensure high availability for SAP HANA. Which TWO AWS services or features are commonly used to achieve this? (Choose TWO.)
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Amazon Route 53 with failover routing
Amazon Route 53 with failover routing is correct because it allows DNS-based routing to redirect traffic to a secondary SAP HANA instance in another Availability Zone if the primary fails. This is a common pattern for achieving high availability for SAP HANA on AWS, as it works in conjunction with SAP HANA system replication to provide automatic failover at the DNS level.
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.
✗
Amazon EFS with Multi-AZ mount targets
Why it's wrong here
EFS is not used for HANA HA.
✗
Amazon S3 cross-region replication
Why it's wrong here
S3 replication is for disaster recovery, not real-time HA.
✓
Amazon Route 53 with failover routing
Why this is correct
Route 53 can redirect traffic to the secondary HANA instance upon failure.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
SAP HANA system replication across Availability Zones
Why this is correct
This provides database-level replication for HA.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
AWS Global Accelerator with endpoint weights
Why it's wrong here
Global Accelerator is for global traffic, not HANA HA.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse high availability with disaster recovery, leading them to select cross-region replication (option B) or Global Accelerator (option E) instead of recognizing that within a single region, SAP HANA system replication and Route 53 failover routing are the standard AWS services for high availability.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
SAP HANA system replication (option D) uses synchronous or asynchronous replication at the database level to maintain a standby instance in a different Availability Zone, ensuring data consistency and automatic failover. Route 53 failover routing (option C) complements this by updating DNS records to point to the standby instance's IP address when health checks detect a failure, enabling clients to reconnect without manual intervention. In a real-world scenario, the combination of these two services allows SAP HANA to achieve a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of near zero and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of minutes, which is critical for production workloads.
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 media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
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: Amazon Route 53 with failover routing — Amazon Route 53 with failover routing is correct because it allows DNS-based routing to redirect traffic to a secondary SAP HANA instance in another Availability Zone if the primary fails. This is a common pattern for achieving high availability for SAP HANA on AWS, as it works in conjunction with SAP HANA system replication to provide automatic failover at the DNS level.
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.
About these practice questions
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These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company is running SAP HANA on AWS and needs to ensure high availability for the database. Which AWS service should be used to automatically recover the HANA primary instance in case of an instance failure?
easy
A.Amazon CloudWatch alarms
B.AWS CloudFormation custom resources
C.AWS Lambda functions
✓ D.Amazon Route 53 health checks and failover routing
Why D: Option A is correct because Amazon Route 53 can be used with health checks to automatically redirect traffic to a standby HANA instance. Option B is wrong because AWS CloudFormation is for infrastructure provisioning, not automatic recovery. Option C is wrong because AWS Lambda can be used for custom automation but is not the primary service for this. Option D is wrong because Amazon CloudWatch monitors but does not automatically recover the instance.
Variation 2. A company is planning to run SAP NetWeaver on AWS and needs to ensure high availability for the database layer. Which AWS service can be used to achieve automatic failover of an SAP HANA database?
easy
A.AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)
B.Application Load Balancer (ALB)
C.Amazon RDS Multi-AZ
✓ D.SAP HANA System Replication (HSR)
Why D: SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) is the native SAP mechanism for replicating data from a primary HANA database to one or more secondary systems, enabling automatic failover in the event of a primary failure. This is the correct approach for achieving high availability for SAP HANA on AWS, as it integrates with AWS services like Elastic IPs or Route53 for IP re-mapping during failover, and is fully supported by SAP for production workloads.
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Question Discussion
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