PAS-C01 Migration Practice Question
A company is migrating an on-premises SAP HANA database to AWS. The database is 2 TB in size, and the network link has a bandwidth of 1 Gbps with an average utilization of 40% during the migration window. They need to minimize the migration time. Which approach should they use?
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
✓
Use AWS Snowball Edge to transfer the data physically.
AWS Snowball Edge is the most efficient approach for large data transfers (2 TB) over a constrained network (1 Gbps at 40% utilization ≈ 400 Mbps). It physically ships the data, avoiding network bottlenecks entirely. Option A is correct. Option B is wrong because requesting a bandwidth increase is impractical and may not be feasible. Option C is wrong: AWS DMS with ongoing replication minimizes downtime for incremental changes, but the initial full load would still be slow over the constrained network, increasing total migration time. Option D is wrong: Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration only speeds up uploads to S3, not to SAP HANA directly, and it still relies on the network link.
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 Snowball Edge to transfer the data physically.
Why this is correct
Snowball avoids network bottleneck for large data.
- ✗
Request a temporary bandwidth increase from the ISP.
Why it's wrong here
Bandwidth increase may not be possible or timely.
- ✗
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with ongoing replication to minimize downtime.
Why it's wrong here
DMS initial load is still limited by network bandwidth.
- ✗
Use Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration to speed up the transfer.
Why it's wrong here
Transfer Acceleration is for S3 uploads, not directly to SAP HANA.
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.