PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
A company is running an SAP HANA database on an r5.8xlarge EC2 instance. The database experiences high memory pressure, and they want to add more memory without downtime. What should they do?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently think stopping the instance is always required for instance type changes, but AWS supports live resizing for certain instance families like r5, and they might incorrectly choose Option D due to familiarity with the u-6tb1.112xlarge instance type for SAP HANA, ignoring the downtime constraint.
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
✓
Modify the instance type to r5.12xlarge while the instance is running.
You can modify the instance type of a running EC2 instance without stopping it, provided the new type is compatible with the current configuration. In this case, changing from r5.8xlarge to r5.12xlarge increases memory from 256 GiB to 384 GiB, and both are in the same instance family, supporting live resizing. This allows the SAP HANA database to add memory without downtime, addressing high memory pressure.
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 License Manager to add more memory to the instance.
Why it's wrong here
License Manager manages software licenses, not memory allocation.
- ✓
Modify the instance type to r5.12xlarge while the instance is running.
Why this is correct
EC2 instances with ENA support can change instance type without stopping if the new type is in the same family.
- ✗
Use Amazon RDS for SAP HANA to automatically scale memory.
Why it's wrong here
RDS for SAP HANA is not a service; SAP HANA on RDS is not supported.
- ✗
Stop the instance and change the instance type to u-6tb1.112xlarge.
Why it's wrong here
Stopping the instance to change to a u-6tb1.112xlarge violates the no-downtime requirement, as the database must remain online during the memory increase. This option is tempting because the u-6tb1 instance family is designed for high-memory SAP HANA workloads and would be a correct choice if a planned maintenance window were acceptable.
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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.