PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
A company runs an SAP HANA database on an r5.8xlarge EC2 instance. The operations team notices that the instance's CPU utilization spikes to 100% every night at 2 AM, causing SAP application timeouts. CloudWatch metrics show the spike corresponds to a backup process. Which action should be taken to resolve the issue?
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
✓
Move the backup window to an earlier time when the system is less active.
Rescheduling the backup to a less active time reduces CPU contention directly. Option B is wrong because increasing instance size is costly and does not address the underlying scheduling issue. Option C is wrong because disabling backups compromises data protection. Option D is wrong because restarting the instance via CloudWatch alarm is a reactive measure that may cause data loss or downtime and does not fix the root cause.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Move the backup window to an earlier time when the system is less active.
Why this is correct
Rescheduling the backup to a less active time reduces CPU contention directly.
- ✗
Increase the instance size to handle the backup load.
Why it's wrong here
Increasing instance size is costly and does not address the underlying scheduling issue.
- ✗
Disable the nightly backup.
Why it's wrong here
Disabling backups compromises data protection.
- ✗
Implement CloudWatch alarm to restart the instance when CPU is high.
Why it's wrong here
Restarting the instance via a CloudWatch alarm is a reactive measure that does not resolve the root cause (backup CPU contention) and may cause downtime or data loss.
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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.