PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
A company runs SAP HANA on AWS using a scale-up configuration. The system is experiencing high CPU utilization on the HANA server during peak load. The SAP administrator wants to add more CPU resources without disruption. Which action should be taken?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse scaling up (changing instance type) with scaling out (adding nodes), and assume that changing the instance type can be done without disruption, but AWS requires stopping the instance for a type change, which causes 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
✓
Add an additional HANA node to create a scale-out configuration and distribute the load.
Adding an additional HANA node to create a scale-out configuration allows the system to distribute the workload across multiple nodes, providing additional CPU resources without downtime. SAP HANA supports scale-out configurations where new nodes can be added online using the 'ALTER SYSTEM ADD WORKER' command, enabling CPU scaling without restarting the existing system.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Add an additional HANA node to create a scale-out configuration and distribute the load.
Why this is correct
Scale-out can be added online if using HANA system replication, but involves new instances. However, among options, this is the only one that adds CPU without stopping existing instance (though new instances needed).
- ✗
Enable Multi-AZ deployment for high availability.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ does not add CPU capacity.
- ✗
Change the EC2 instance type to a larger size using the AWS Management Console.
Why it's wrong here
Changing instance type requires stopping the instance, causing downtime.
- ✗
Increase the provisioned IOPS on the EBS volumes.
Why it's wrong here
IOPS increase does not add CPU.
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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.