SAP HANA Automatic Failover with Pacemaker and STONITH on AWS
A company is planning to run SAP S/4HANA on AWS and needs to ensure that the system can automatically recover from an Availability Zone failure. They want to use SAP HANA System Replication with automatic failover. Which AWS configuration is required?
Quick Answer
Automatic failover for SAP HANA System Replication requires more than just having a secondary database ready to take over - it requires a mechanism that can reliably detect a failure, decide which node should be primary, and make absolutely sure the failed node can't come back and act as primary too, which would corrupt data through a split-brain scenario. That's exactly what a Pacemaker cluster with STONITH (Shoot The Other Node In The Head) provides: Pacemaker handles the failure detection and orchestration of the failover itself, while STONITH forcibly fences off the failed primary node so it cannot resume processing once the secondary has taken over. This fencing step is what makes the failover safe to automate; without it, an automatic failover mechanism would risk two nodes both believing they're primary if the original node recovers unexpectedly, which is precisely the split-brain condition STONITH exists to prevent. Spanning the cluster across two Availability Zones is what lets this design survive an actual AZ-level failure, since the standby node and its ability to take over don't depend on the same infrastructure that failed. The broader pattern to internalize is that automatic failover for a stateful clustered database on AWS almost always implies a cluster manager plus a fencing mechanism, not just replication alone - replication gets the data to the secondary, but a Pacemaker and STONITH setup is what makes switching over to it both automatic and safe.
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse managed database services like Amazon RDS Multi-AZ with the specific requirements of SAP HANA System Replication, assuming that AWS's built-in high availability features can replace the need for a Pacemaker cluster with STONITH, but SAP HANA on AWS requires explicit cluster configuration and fencing to achieve automatic failover across Availability Zones.
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
✓
Pacemaker cluster with STONITH across two Availability Zones
SAP HANA System Replication with automatic failover requires a Pacemaker cluster with STONITH (Shoot The Other Node In The Head) configured across two Availability Zones. This setup provides the fencing mechanism necessary to prevent split-brain scenarios and ensures that the failed primary node is forcibly isolated before the secondary node takes over, enabling reliable automatic failover for SAP S/4HANA on AWS.
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 Auto Scaling groups with lifecycle hooks
Why it's wrong here
Auto Scaling is not designed for database failover.
- ✓
Pacemaker cluster with STONITH across two Availability Zones
Why this is correct
Pacemaker with STONITH provides automatic failover and fencing.
- ✗
Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployment
Why it's wrong here
RDS does not support SAP HANA.
- ✗
Amazon EFS as shared storage for HANA data
Why it's wrong here
EFS is not supported for SAP HANA data files.
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Same concept, more angles
2 more ways this is tested on PAS-C01
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 S/4HANA on AWS. The application team reports that batch jobs are failing intermittently with database connection timeouts. The SAP system uses a single Availability Zone deployment. Which design change should the architect recommend to improve database availability?
medium- A.Use Amazon EBS Multi-Attach to attach the same volume to multiple EC2 instances
- B.Implement an Amazon RDS for SAP HANA read replica
- ✓ C.Configure SAP HANA System Replication across two Availability Zones
- D.Scale up the SAP HANA instance to a larger instance type
Why C: SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) across two Availability Zones provides synchronous or asynchronous data replication at the database level, ensuring that if the primary HANA instance fails, the secondary can take over with minimal downtime. This directly addresses the intermittent database connection timeouts by eliminating the single point of failure in a single-AZ deployment, as the application can failover to the replica without manual intervention.
Variation 2. A company is deploying SAP S/4HANA on AWS and needs to ensure high availability for the database layer. Which TWO actions should the company take?
easy- A.Store HANA backups in Amazon S3 Standard-IA
- ✓ B.Configure SAP HANA System Replication across two Availability Zones
- C.Use Amazon EFS as the data volume for HANA
- ✓ D.Provision Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes for HANA data
- E.Enable EC2 Auto Scaling for the HANA instance
Why B: SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) across two Availability Zones provides synchronous or asynchronous data replication at the database level, ensuring automatic failover and high availability for the HANA database. This is a core requirement for SAP S/4HANA on AWS, as it protects against AZ-level failures and meets SAP's HA architecture guidelines.
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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