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 running SAP HANA on an r5.8xlarge instance. They want to scale up to meet increased memory requirements. Which instance family would be the MOST suitable for a scale-up scenario?
x1e.32xlarge
x1e is designed for large SAP HANA scale-up.
r5.24xlarge
Why wrong: r5 is smaller than x1e for scale-up.
i3.16xlarge
Why wrong: i3 is storage-optimized.
c5.18xlarge
Why wrong: c5 is compute-optimized, not memory-optimized.
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.32xlarge
The x1e.32xlarge instance is part of the X1e family, which is specifically designed for high-memory workloads like SAP HANA. With 3,904 GiB of memory, it provides the largest memory capacity among AWS instances, making it the most suitable for scaling up SAP HANA to meet increased memory requirements. SAP HANA is an in-memory database, so scaling up requires instances with high memory-to-vCPU ratios, which the X1e family delivers.
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.
x1e.32xlarge
Why this is correct
x1e is designed for large SAP HANA scale-up.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
r5.24xlarge
Why it's wrong here
r5 is smaller than x1e for scale-up.
i3.16xlarge
Why it's wrong here
i3 is storage-optimized.
c5.18xlarge
Why it's wrong here
c5 is compute-optimized, not memory-optimized.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates may choose the r5.24xlarge because it is memory-optimized, but they overlook that the X1e family offers much higher memory capacity specifically required for SAP HANA scale-up scenarios.
Detailed technical explanation
SAP HANA is an in-memory database that requires all data to reside in RAM for optimal performance, so scaling up involves moving to instances with larger memory footprints. The x1e.32xlarge uses Intel Xeon E7-8880 v4 processors and supports up to 3,904 GiB of memory, which is certified by SAP for production HANA workloads. In real-world scenarios, customers often start with R5 instances but must migrate to X1e or X2idn families when memory demands exceed 768 GiB, as the R5 family cannot be scaled further.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
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.32xlarge — The x1e.32xlarge instance is part of the X1e family, which is specifically designed for high-memory workloads like SAP HANA. With 3,904 GiB of memory, it provides the largest memory capacity among AWS instances, making it the most suitable for scaling up SAP HANA to meet increased memory requirements. SAP HANA is an in-memory database, so scaling up requires instances with high memory-to-vCPU ratios, which the X1e family delivers.
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 11, 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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