PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
A company is running SAP ERP on AWS with an Oracle database. The application servers are deployed in an Auto Scaling group across three Availability Zones. The database is hosted on a single EC2 instance in us-east-1a. The company wants to improve availability with minimal changes to the application. The database must be highly available with automatic failover and no data loss. The database size is 1 TB. The current RTO is 2 hours and RPO is 1 hour. The company is considering using Oracle Data Guard for replication. Which solution should the company implement to meet the HA requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently assume AWS-managed services like RDS Multi-AZ are always the best choice for high availability, but the question explicitly requires minimal application changes and zero data loss, making Oracle-native Data Guard with synchronous replication the correct fit despite the operational overhead.
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
✓
Configure Oracle Data Guard with synchronous replication and Fast-Start Failover (FSFO) to automatically fail over to a standby instance in another AZ.
Oracle Data Guard with synchronous replication ensures zero data loss by committing transactions only after they are written to both primary and standby redo logs. Fast-Start Failover (FSFO) automates the failover process without manual intervention, meeting the RTO of 2 hours and RPO of 1 hour while requiring minimal application changes since the database remains Oracle-native.
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 Database Migration Service (DMS) to replicate the Oracle database to a second EC2 instance in another AZ, and use an Amazon Route 53 health check to redirect traffic.
Why it's wrong here
DMS is for migration, not for HA; it does not provide automatic failover.
- ✗
Migrate the Oracle database to Amazon RDS for Oracle with Multi-AZ deployment and automatic failover.
Why it's wrong here
This requires migrating the database, which involves significant changes; also, RDS Multi-AZ uses synchronous replication but may not be compatible with all Oracle features used by SAP.
- ✓
Configure Oracle Data Guard with synchronous replication and Fast-Start Failover (FSFO) to automatically fail over to a standby instance in another AZ.
Why this is correct
Synchronous replication ensures zero data loss; FSFO provides automatic failover.
- ✗
Configure Oracle Data Guard with asynchronous replication to a standby instance in us-east-1b, and use a custom script to detect failure and promote the standby.
Why it's wrong here
Asynchronous replication may result in data loss (RPO > 0).
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