PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
A company runs SAP ERP on AWS. The system needs to be highly available with automatic failover in case of an Availability Zone failure. Which architecture should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse generic AWS high-availability services (like Auto Scaling or RDS Multi-AZ) with SAP-specific requirements, failing to recognize that SAP HANA requires its own replication mechanism (HSR) and that RDS does not support SAP HANA at all.
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
✓
SAP HANA System Replication across two Availability Zones with automatic failover
SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) across two Availability Zones with automatic failover is the correct architecture because it provides synchronous or asynchronous replication of the SAP HANA database at the storage or log level, enabling automatic failover to a standby instance in a different AZ when the primary fails. This meets the requirement for high availability and automatic failover during an AZ failure, as HSR is the native SAP mechanism for database-level HA on AWS, unlike generic AWS services that do not handle SAP-specific application state or replication requirements.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Route 53 failover routing policy
Why it's wrong here
Route 53 handles DNS failover, not application automatic failover.
- ✗
Auto Scaling group with multiple EC2 instances in different AZs
Why it's wrong here
Auto Scaling is for scaling, not automatic failover for SAP.
- ✓
SAP HANA System Replication across two Availability Zones with automatic failover
Why this is correct
HANA SR across AZs provides automatic failover for HA.
- ✗
AWS RDS Multi-AZ deployment
Why it's wrong here
RDS Multi-AZ is for Amazon RDS, not SAP HANA.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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JA
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.