This PAS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of design of sap workloads on aws. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 migrating its SAP HANA database to AWS. Which instance type is specifically designed for SAP HANA and certified for production workloads?
c5.xlarge
Why wrong: c5 instances are compute-optimized, not for HANA.
r5.xlarge
Why wrong: r5 instances are memory-optimized but not HANA-certified.
x1e.xlarge
x1e instances are SAP HANA certified for production.
t3.xlarge
Why wrong: t3 instances are burstable and not SAP HANA certified.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
x1e.xlarge
The x1e.xlarge instance is part of the AWS X1e family, which is specifically designed for memory-intensive workloads like SAP HANA and is certified by SAP for production deployments. SAP HANA requires large memory footprints and high memory-to-vCPU ratios, which the X1e instances provide with up to 3,904 GiB of memory and 128 vCPUs, meeting SAP's certification requirements.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
c5.xlarge
Why it's wrong here
c5 instances are compute-optimized, not for HANA.
r5.xlarge
Why it's wrong here
r5 instances are memory-optimized but not HANA-certified.
x1e.xlarge
Why this is correct
x1e instances are SAP HANA certified for production.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
t3.xlarge
Why it's wrong here
t3 instances are burstable and not SAP HANA certified.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often assume any memory-optimized instance (like R5) is suitable for SAP HANA, but AWS requires specific instance families (X1, X1e, high-memory) that are officially SAP-certified for production workloads.
Detailed technical explanation
SAP HANA is an in-memory database that keeps all data in RAM, so instance selection is critical: AWS provides dedicated SAP HANA-certified instance families (X1, X1e, high-memory) that undergo rigorous SAP validation to ensure compatibility with HANA's memory and CPU requirements. Under the hood, X1e instances use Intel Xeon E7-8880 v4 processors and support large page sizes (2 MB and 1 GB) for optimized memory access, which is essential for HANA's columnar storage and real-time analytics. In a real-world migration, choosing a non-certified instance like r5.xlarge could lead to SAP support refusal and performance degradation due to insufficient memory bandwidth or NUMA topology mismatches.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
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
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FAQ
Design of SAP Workloads on AWS — This question tests Design of SAP Workloads on AWS — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: x1e.xlarge — The x1e.xlarge instance is part of the AWS X1e family, which is specifically designed for memory-intensive workloads like SAP HANA and is certified by SAP for production deployments. SAP HANA requires large memory footprints and high memory-to-vCPU ratios, which the X1e instances provide with up to 3,904 GiB of memory and 128 vCPUs, meeting SAP's certification requirements.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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.
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