PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
This PAS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of design of sap workloads on aws. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
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?
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.
Option B is correct because 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.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
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.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
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.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates may 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.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
SAP HANA relies on persistent storage for data and log volumes, with the data volume handling random reads/writes and the log volume handling sequential writes. io2 Block Express volumes support up to 256,000 IOPS and 4,000 MB/s throughput per volume, while gp3 caps at 16,000 IOPS and 1,000 MB/s, making io2 Block Express the preferred choice for HANA data volumes in production. In real-world scenarios, HANA's savepoint operations and column store merges can spike I/O demand, and insufficient IOPS leads to increased query latency and longer delta merge times.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Design of SAP Workloads on AWS — This question tests Design of SAP Workloads on AWS — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Change the data volume type from gp3 to io2 Block Express with higher IOPS. — Option B is correct because 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.
What should I do if I get this PAS-C01 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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