PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
A company is running an SAP HANA database on AWS using an i3.16xlarge instance. The database storage is configured with multiple EBS gp2 volumes in a RAID 0 stripe to meet IOPS requirements. During a workload spike, the application experiences increased latency and the database performance degrades. The CloudWatch metrics show high Average Queue Length (avg_queue_len) on the EBS volumes but not 100% utilization of the CPU. Which design change is MOST likely to resolve the performance issue?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often assume adding more volumes to a RAID 0 stripe will linearly increase IOPS, but they overlook that gp2 volumes have a shared burst credit pool per volume and that the bottleneck is IOPS credit exhaustion, not throughput.
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
✓
Replace gp2 volumes with io2 Block Express volumes to provide consistent IOPS performance.
The high Average Queue Length indicates that the EBS volumes are saturating their IOPS capacity, causing requests to queue up. gp2 volumes have a burst-bucket model that can exhaust credits under sustained high I/O, leading to throttled performance. io2 Block Express volumes provide consistent, provisioned IOPS without burst limitations, directly resolving the queuing issue without requiring instance or stripe changes.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Replace gp2 volumes with io2 Block Express volumes to provide consistent IOPS performance.
Why this is correct
io2 Block Express offers provisioned IOPS with sustained performance, eliminating burst credit exhaustion.
- ✗
Move the database to an i3en.24xlarge instance to increase network and EBS bandwidth.
Why it's wrong here
Instance performance is not the bottleneck; the issue is storage queue depth.
- ✗
Enable EBS optimization on the existing instance to improve throughput.
Why it's wrong here
EBS optimization is enabled by default on i3 instances; this change is not applicable.
- ✗
Add two additional gp2 volumes to the RAID 0 stripe to increase throughput.
Why it's wrong here
Adding more gp2 volumes may increase throughput but does not address the root cause of burst credit exhaustion.
Visual reference
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 |
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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.