The answer is to reduce the DNS TTL to 60 seconds and pair it with a weighted routing policy and health checks. This directly addresses the bottleneck in your SAP HANA HSR failover on AWS because a 300-second TTL caused DNS resolvers to cache the old IP address too long, delaying the Route 53 failover routing policy from propagating the secondary site’s virtual IP after the health check detected the AZ failure. On the PAS-C01 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of how DNS TTL interacts with HANA System Replication failover timing—a common trap is assuming health checks alone are enough, but the TTL must be low enough to meet the RTO. Remember, for sub-5-minute failover, your TTL should be shorter than your recovery window; think “60 seconds for 5-minute RTO” as a quick memory anchor.
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. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 with a multi-AZ deployment using HANA System Replication (HSR). The primary site is in us-east-1a and the secondary in us-east-1b. Each site has an ASCS and PAS. The HANA database uses a virtual IP address managed by a Route 53 health check with a failover routing policy. During a recent AZ failure in us-east-1a, the automatic failover to the secondary site took over 15 minutes. The recovery time objective (RTO) is 5 minutes. Analysis shows that the Route 53 health check failed but the failover did not trigger quickly because the DNS TTL was set to 300 seconds. What changes should be made to meet the RTO?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "primary"
Why it matters: Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Reduce the DNS TTL to 60 seconds and use a weighted routing policy with health checks.
Option C is correct because reducing the DNS TTL to 60 seconds ensures that DNS resolvers cache the failover record for a shorter duration, allowing the Route 53 failover routing policy to propagate the new IP address more quickly after a health check failure. Combined with a weighted routing policy and health checks, this enables failover within the 5-minute RTO by minimizing DNS propagation delay, which was the bottleneck at 300 seconds.
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 DNS TTL to 600 seconds to ensure stability.
Why it's wrong here
Higher TTL increases failover time, not decreases.
✗
Replace Route 53 with an Application Load Balancer for the virtual IP.
Why it's wrong here
ALB is for HTTP/HTTPS traffic, not for HANA database connections.
✓
Reduce the DNS TTL to 60 seconds and use a weighted routing policy with health checks.
Why this is correct
Lower TTL speeds up DNS propagation; weighted routing allows immediate failover.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "primary" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Remove the health check and use a simple routing policy with a low TTL.
Why it's wrong here
Without health checks, failover cannot be automated.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates may think increasing TTL improves stability (Option A) or that an ALB can replace a virtual IP for HANA HSR (Option B), but the core issue is DNS propagation delay, and only reducing TTL with a failover routing policy directly addresses the RTO requirement.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Route 53 failover routing policies rely on health checks to detect endpoint failures and then update DNS records with a TTL that controls how long resolvers cache the previous response. With a 300-second TTL, even after the health check fails, clients and intermediate DNS resolvers continue to use the cached primary IP for up to 5 minutes, causing the observed delay. Reducing the TTL to 60 seconds aligns with AWS best practices for fast DNS failover, but note that the actual failover time also depends on the health check interval (default 30 seconds) and the number of failing checks required to mark the endpoint unhealthy (default 3), so the total failover time becomes approximately 30 seconds (health check detection) + 60 seconds (TTL propagation) = 90 seconds, well within the 5-minute RTO.
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: Reduce the DNS TTL to 60 seconds and use a weighted routing policy with health checks. — Option C is correct because reducing the DNS TTL to 60 seconds ensures that DNS resolvers cache the failover record for a shorter duration, allowing the Route 53 failover routing policy to propagate the new IP address more quickly after a health check failure. Combined with a weighted routing policy and health checks, this enables failover within the 5-minute RTO by minimizing DNS propagation delay, which was the bottleneck at 300 seconds.
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.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "primary". Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Share a tip, memory trick, or ask about the reasoning behind this question. Do not post real exam questions, leaked content, braindumps, or copyrighted exam material. Comments are moderated and may be removed without notice.
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.
Question Discussion
Share a tip, memory trick, or ask about the reasoning behind this question. Do not post real exam questions, leaked content, braindumps, or copyrighted exam material. Comments are moderated and may be removed without notice.
Sign in to join the discussion.