PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
A company runs SAP HANA on AWS using an r5.8xlarge instance with 3.8 TB of EBS gp3 storage. The HANA data volume is 2 TB. The system is experiencing performance issues, and the database administrator suspects that the storage I/O is the bottleneck. Which TWO actions should be taken to improve I/O performance?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse increasing volume size with improving performance, or assume that network bandwidth upgrades affect storage I/O, when in fact EBS performance is independent of instance network bandwidth and governed by volume type and IOPS provisioning.
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
✓
Change the data volume type from gp3 to io2 Block Express with higher IOPS.
Io2 Block Express provides up to 256,000 IOPS per volume with sub-millisecond latency, which is essential for SAP HANA's demanding I/O patterns. The current gp3 volume, while offering baseline performance, cannot match the consistent low-latency and high-IOPS capabilities required for HANA data volumes under heavy write workloads. Option E is also correct because increasing provisioned IOPS on the existing gp3 volume directly addresses the I/O bottleneck by raising the performance ceiling, though gp3 has a maximum of 16,000 IOPS per volume, which may still be insufficient for large HANA deployments.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the size of the log volume to improve write performance.
Why it's wrong here
Log volume size does not directly improve I/O performance.
- ✓
Change the data volume type from gp3 to io2 Block Express with higher IOPS.
Why this is correct
io2 provides consistent low-latency performance.
- ✗
Enable HANA delta merge operations to run more frequently.
Why it's wrong here
Delta merge is a HANA operation, not a storage configuration.
- ✗
Upgrade the instance to a larger size with higher network bandwidth.
Why it's wrong here
Network bandwidth is not the storage I/O bottleneck.
- ✓
Increase the provisioned IOPS on the HANA data volume.
Why this is correct
Higher IOPS improves read/write throughput.
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
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,616 original PAS-C01 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.