PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
A company runs SAP ECC on AWS with a multi-ASCS architecture for high availability. During a failover test, the secondary ASCS instance does not take over. The cluster logs indicate that the 'aws-cluster' resource agent failed to release the Elastic IP. What is the MOST likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently assume IAM permissions (Option D) are the root cause of any AWS resource management failure, but the specific log message about 'failed to release' points to a technical limitation of the resource agent with IP-level EIP associations, not an authorization 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
✓
The Elastic IP is associated with the primary private IP address of the ENI.
In a multi-ASCS SAP cluster on AWS, the 'aws-cluster' resource agent manages Elastic IP (EIP) failover by disassociating the EIP from the primary instance and associating it with the secondary instance. If the EIP is associated with the primary private IP address of the Elastic Network Interface (ENI) rather than the ENI itself, the resource agent cannot release it because the association is at the IP level, not the ENI level. This prevents the secondary ASCS instance from acquiring the EIP, causing the failover to fail.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
The Elastic IP is associated with the primary private IP address of the ENI.
Why this is correct
EIPs are associated with private IPs; if it's on the primary IP, the ENI cannot be moved without detaching. A secondary IP allows reassignment.
- ✗
The Elastic IP is in a different Availability Zone than the secondary ASCS instance.
Why it's wrong here
EIPs are region-specific and can be moved across AZs as long as they are not associated.
- ✗
The cluster is using a NAT Gateway for outbound traffic, conflicting with the Elastic IP.
Why it's wrong here
NAT Gateway is for outbound traffic; does not affect EIP reassignment.
- ✗
The IAM role assigned to the instances does not have permission to release the Elastic IP.
Why it's wrong here
IAM permissions are for API calls; the resource agent uses AWS CLI, but the error is about releasing, not permissions.
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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.