PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
A company is running SAP on AWS and needs to migrate a large on-premises SAP HANA database to AWS with minimal downtime. Which approach is most suitable?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse AWS DMS with a database-agnostic replication tool, but DMS does not support SAP HANA as a target, and Amazon RDS for SAP HANA does not exist, leading to the incorrect assumption that DMS can handle the migration with minimal downtime.
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
✓
Set up SAP HANA System Replication between the on-premises system and an EC2 instance running HANA in AWS.
SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) is the native, low-latency replication mechanism designed for HANA databases, enabling near-continuous data synchronization between an on-premises system and an EC2 instance. This approach supports a controlled takeover with minimal downtime, as it replicates transactions in real time using log shipping or synchronous replication, making it the most suitable for large databases requiring minimal interruption.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Export the HANA database to a file, upload to S3, and import into a new HANA instance on EC2.
Why it's wrong here
Export/import requires significant downtime for large databases.
- ✗
Use AWS Server Migration Service (SMS) to replicate the entire on-premises server to AWS.
Why it's wrong here
SMS is for server-level migration, not optimized for HANA database replication.
- ✗
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to continuously replicate data to an Amazon RDS for SAP HANA instance.
Why it's wrong here
DMS supports heterogeneous migrations, but HANA to HANA replication is better done with HSR. Also RDS for HANA is not available.
- ✓
Set up SAP HANA System Replication between the on-premises system and an EC2 instance running HANA in AWS.
Why this is correct
HSR provides asynchronous or synchronous replication with minimal downtime.
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